i^^ 


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OF  THE 


REESE  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


AMERICAN   CRISIS   BIOGRAPHIES 

Edited  by 

Ellis  Paxson  Oberholtzer,  Ph.  D. 


Hmerican  Crisis  Bioerapbies 

Edited  by  Ellis  Paxson  Oberholtzer,  Ph.D.  With  the 
counsel  and  advice  of  Professor  John  B.  McMaster,  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

Each  i2mo,  cloth,  with  frontispiece  portrait.  Price 
$1.25  net;  by  mail,  $1.37. 

These  biographies  will  constitute  a  complete  and  comprehensive 
history  of  the  great  American  sectional  struggle  in  the  form  of  readable 
and  authoritative  biography.  The  editor  has  enlisted  the  co-operation 
of  many  competent  writers,  as  will  be  noted  from  the  list  given  below. 
An  interesting  feature  of  the  undertaking  is  that  the  series  is  to  be  im 
partial,  Southern  writers  having  been  assigned  to  Southern  subjects  and 
Northern  writers  to  Northern  subjects,  but  all  will  belong  to  the  younger 
generation  of  writers,  thus  assuring  freedom  from  any  suspicion  of  war 
time  prejudice.  The  Civil  War  will  not  be  treated  as  a  rebellion,  but  as 
the  great  event  in  the  history  of  our  nation,  which,  after  forty  years,  it 
is  now  clearly  recognized  to  nave  been. 

Now  ready : 

Abraham  Lincoln.     By  ELLIS  PAXSON  OBERHOLTZER. 
Thomas  H.  Benton.     By  JOSEPH  M.  ROGERS. 
David  G.  Farragut.      By  JOHN  R.  SPEARS. 
William  T.  Sherman.     By  EDWARD  ROBINS. 
Frederick  Douglass.     By  BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON. 
Judah  P.  Benjamin.      By  PIERCE  BUTLER. 
Robert  E.  Lee.     By  PHILIP  ALEXANDER  BRUCE. 
Jefferson  Davis.     By  PROF.  W.  E.  DODD. 
Alexander  H.  Stephens.      BY  Louis  PENDLETON. 

In  preparation : 

John  C.  Calhoun.     By  GAILLARD  HUNT. 
Daniel  Webster.     By  PROF.  C.  H.  VAN  TYNE. 
John  Quincy  Adams.     By  BROOKS  ADAMS. 
John  Brown.     By  W.  E.  BURGH ARDT  DUBOIS. 
William  Lloyd  Garrison.     By  LINDSAY  SWIFT. 
Charles  Sumner.     By  PROF.  GEORGE  H.  HAYNES. 
William  H.  Seward.     By  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE,  Jr. 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.     By  PROF.  HENRY  PARKER  WILLIS. 
Thaddeus  Stevens.     By  PROF.  J.  A.  WOODBURN. 
Andrew  Johnson.     BY  PROF.  WALTER  L.  FLEMING. 
Henry  Clay.     By  THOMAS  H.  CLAY. 
Ulysses  S.  Grant.     By  PROF.  FRANKLIN  S.  EDMONDS. 
Edwin  M.  Stanton.     By  EDWIN  S.  CORWIN. 
"  Stonewall"  Jackson.     By  HENRY  ALEXANDER  WHITE. 
Jay  Cooke.    By  ELLIS  PAXSON  OBERHOLTZER. 


AMERICAN  CRISIS  BIOGRAPHIES 


ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 


by 
LOUIS  PENDLETON 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE  W.  JACOBS  &  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1907,  BY 

GEORGE  W.  JACOBS  &  COMPANY 

Published  March,  1908 


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PREFACE 

A  LIFE  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  suited  to  the  needs 
of  the  modern  reader  is  desirable  not  only  because  of 
the  peculiar  personality  of  one  of  the  ablest  of  the 
Southern  statesmen  of  the  old  regime,  and  because  of 
his  association  with  great  events  as  Vice-President  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy,  but  because  he  was  one  of 
the  most  consistent  figures  in  the  long  struggle  between 
the  champions  of  State  sovereignty  and  the  supporters 
of  Federal  supremacy.  Though  a  fellow  Georgian,  I 
have  found  Stephens  chiefly  interesting  as  a  battling 
representative  of  State  sovereignty  in  its  conflict  with 
nationalism,  and  as  one  of  the  ablest  of  those  who  de 
fied  destiny  in  the  age-long,  evolutionary  process — to 
which  the  terms  "right"  and  "wrong"  are  too  indi 
vidual  and  personal  to  apply — finally  producing  a  na 
tion  out  of  a  mere  confederation.  The  extent  of  the 
author's  study  of  this  general  subject  may  be  seen  from 
the  bibliography  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  practically 
all  available  sources  having  been  drawn  on  in  order  to 
illustrate  the  early  weakness  of  the  Federal  govern 
ment,  the  division  of  sovereignty  under  our  dual  sys 
tem,  the  conflict  between  the  partisans  of  State  and 
nation,  and  the  nullification  and  disunion  sentiment  so 
often  and  so  violently  manifested  in  all  sections  of  the 
country  during  the  first  seventy  years  after  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution. 

191186 


6  PEEFACE 

A  volume  containing  a  short  sketch  of  Stephens' s  life 
and  the  most  important  of  his  speeches  was  published 
by  Henry  Cleveland  in  1866,  and  a  biography  with 
copious  extracts  from  his  letters — the  collaboration  of 
Messrs.  Johnston  and  Browne — was  brought  out  in 
1878.  Both  of  these  are  of  great  value  as  storehouses 
of  facts,  but,  being  put  forth  by  personal  friends  of 
Stephens  during  his  lifetime,  are  inevitably  more  eulo 
gistic  than  discriminating.  Moreover,  both  are  now 
out  of  print. 

In  addition  to  the  matter  in  these  two  volumes,  I  am 
indebted  for  information  privately  received  through  a 
number  of  friends  in  Georgia  who  were  personally  as 
sociated  or  acquainted  with  the  subject  of  this  biography, 
as  well  as  to  Mr.  Alexander  W.  Stephens,  of  Atlanta, 
who  placed  at  my  disposal  his  great-uncle's  scrap-book 
and  the  unpublished  diary  of  the  latter' s  prison  life  at 
Fort  Warren.  Much  interesting  material  was  also  ob 
tained  through  a  search  of  the  files  of  Georgia  and  other 
Southern  newspapers  of  the  forties,  fifties  and  sixties, 
from  old  letters,  scrap-books  of  the  war  period,  and 
from  manuscripts  in  the  possession  of  the  government 
at  Washington. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  add  that  some  of  the  facts 
found  slumbering  in  dusty  old  newspaper  files,  though 
of  great  interest  to  the  American  historian,  have  never, 
so  far  as  I  am  aware,  been  brought  forward  before  :  as, 
for  example,  that  at  a  banquet  at  Swan  Tavern,  Eich- 
mond,  in  1808,  the  Jefferson  electors  toasted  the  Union, 
declared  secession  to  be  "  treason,"  and  hurled  that 
charge  at  the  New  England  Federalists  then  plotting 
the  establishment  of  a  separate  Northern  Confederacy 
— showing  that  in  both  North  and  South  the  right  of 


PEEFACE  7 

secession  was  too  often  affirmed  or  denied  according  to 
the  dictates  of  sectional  interests  or  party  policy,  al 
though,  as  a  rule,  that  right,  in  the  earlier  times,  was 
very  generally  recognized. 

Louis  PENDLETON. 

December,  1907. 


CONTENTS 

CHRONOLOGY 11 

I.    BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE      .        .  15 

II.    LAWYER  AND  LEGISLATOR  ...  30 

III.  STEPHENS  IN  CONGRESS       ...  48 

IV.  HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAR        .  68 
V.    A  LEADER  OF  THE  WHIG  PARTY         .  85 

VI.    THE  SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1  102 

VII.    NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NORTH  .        .117 

VIII.    STEPHENS  EETIRES  FROM  CONGRESS   .  138 

IX.     HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION        .        .        .  153 

X.    GEORGIA  SECEDES        .  .        .171 

XI.    SEVENTY  YEARS  OF  DISUNION     .        .186 

XII.     VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY  227 

XIII.  THE  SOUTH' s  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR  251 

XIV.  STEPHENS  OPPOSES  DAVIS' s  POLICIES  290 
XV.    DISASTROUS  INTERNAL  DISSENSION     .  307 

XVI.     THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE         .        .  325 

XVII.    CARPETBAG  AND  NEGRO  EULE     .        .  343 

XVIII.     LAST  YEARS 376 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 395 

INDEX  ,  399 


CHRONOLOGY 


1812— Birth  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  February  11,  in  Wilkes 
County,  Ga. 

1828— Sent  by  the  Georgia  Educational  Society  to  Franklin 
College  (later  the  State  University)  at  Athens. 

1833 — A  country  school  teacher. 

1834— Admitted  to  the  bar  at  Crawfordville,  Taliaferro  County. 

1836 — Elected  to  the  State  legislature.     Serves  four  years. 

1841 — Resigns  to  devote  himself  to  his  law  practice. 

1843— Elected  to  Congress. 

1844 — Speaks,  December  19,  in  favor  of  the  annexation  of  Texas. 

1846 — Speaks,  June  16,  in  opposition  to  the  war  on  Mexico  as 
unjust. 

1848 — Stephens's  resolutions  on  the  war  become  the  Whig  platform 
in  the  presidential  campaign.  He  is  brutally  assaulted  and 
stabbed  by  Cone. 

1850 — He  supports  the  Clay  Compromise  and  writes  that  he  fore 
sees  a  disruption  of  the  Union. 

1851 — He  contributes  largely  to  the  triumph  of  the  Unionists  over 
the  Secessionists  in  the  election  of  Ho  well  Cobb  as  Governor 
of  Georgia. 

1852— He  campaigns  for  the  Independent  Whig  ticket  with  Daniel 
Webster  as  candidate,  voting  for  the  latter  even  after  his 
death. 

1854— Speaks  on  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  February  17,  showing 
that  popular  sovereignty  was  the  original  Southern  position, 
and  that  the  North  had  already  repudiated  the  Missouri 
Compromise. 

1855 — Stephens  routs  the  Know  Nothing  party  in  Georgia. 

1856— Speaks  in  Congress,  June  28,  in  defense  of  slavery  as  a 
Biblical  institution.  Challenges  Benjamin  H.  Hill  to  fight 
a  duel. 


12  CHBONOLOGY 

1859 — Retires  from  Congress. 

I860— Opposes  the  policy  of  the  extremists  at  the  Charleston  Con 
vention  and  supports  the  Douglas  ticket  with  its  popular 
sovereignty  platform.  Speaks  before  the  Georgia  legisla 
ture,  December  14,  opposing  secession  as  bad  policy  but  as 
serting  the  right  of  a  sovereign  State  to  secede,  and  denounc 
ing  the  "faithless  States  "  of  the  North  which  had  violated 
the  compact  of  Union  through  their  statutory  repudiations 
of  the  fugitive  slave  clause  in  the  Constitution. 

1861 — Speaks  and  votes  against  secession  in  Georgia's  Convention, 
January  16-21.  At  the  convention  of  the  seceded  States  he 
is  chosen  Vice-President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  Ably 
assists  in  forming  the  new  government.  Sent  as  commis 
sioner  to  negotiate  an  alliance  with  Virginia.  Delivers  his 
startling  "  corner-stone  "  speech  at  Savannah. 

1862— Dissatisfied  with  the  policies  of  the  Confederate  government. 
Deplores  the  habeas  corpus  acts  of  both  the  Lincoln  and  Davis 
governments  and  opposes  conscription  at  the  South.  Out  of 
harmony  with  Jefferson  Davis. 

1863 — He  seeks  in  vain  (July  2-6)  to  arrange  for  an  exchange  of 
prisoners,  the  United  States  government  refusing  to  receive 
him  and  the  proposition  being  rejected. 

1864 — He  criticises  Davis  and  the  policies  of  the  Confederate  gov 
ernment  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  March  16.  Re 
sponsible  for  the  "Peace  Resolutions "  of  that  body. 

1865 — Speaks  in  the  Confederate  Senate  and  urges  a  change  of 
policy.  Is  spokesman  for  the  Confederate  Commissioners  at 
the  Hampton  Roads  Conference,  Arrested,  May  11,  and 
taken  as  a  political  prisoner  to  Fort  Warren.  Released  on 
parole,  October  12. 

1866— Elected  to  United  States  Senate,  but  is  not  allowed  to  take 
his  seat.  Speaks  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  February 
22,  counseling  submission,  courage  and  hope,  and  urging 
just  treatment  of  the  liberated  slaves.  Manly  testimony,  on 
April  16,  before  the  Reconstruction  Committee  of  Congress. 

1867— Begins  to  write  his  Constitutional  View  of  the  War. 

1868 — In  an  interview  in  the  New  York  Herald  he  deplores  the 
disappearance  of  "the  last  vestiges  of  Constitutional  free 
dom,"  referring  to  the  disfranchisement  of  a  majority  of 
Southern  white  men  and  the  bestowal  of  universal  manhood 
suffrage  on  the  negroes. 


CHEONOLOGY  13 

1871 — Becomes  editor  of  the  Southern  Sun  and  continues  his  labors 
as  a  historian. 

1873 — Returns  to  Congress,  and  during  his  second  career  there 
renders  patriotic  service  as  a  peacemaker. 

1882 — Retires  from  Congress  and  is  elected  Governor  of  Georgia  at 
the  age  of  seventy. 

1883 — Dies  on  March  4  in  the  governor's  mansion  at  Atlanta  and 
is  buried  at  his  old  home,  "  Liberty  Hall,"  Crawford ville. 


ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 


CHAPTEE  I 

BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE 

THE  life  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  may  be  said  to 
have  covered  the  period  of  disunion  agitation  in  the 
United  States.  It  is  true  that  his  birth,  on  February 
11,  1812,  occurred  fourteen  years  after  the  Virginia 
and  Kentucky  nullification  resolutions  of  1798,  and 
about  eight  years  after  the  New  England  movement  of 
1803-4,  toward  the  formation  of  a  separate  Northern 
confederacy,  which  was  also  to  include  New  York  and 
perhaps  New  Jersey.  But  he  was  nearly  three  years 
old  when  the  Hartford  Convention  of  December,  1814, 
revealed  a  continuing  disunion  sentiment  in  New  Eng 
land  ;  he  was  a  boy  in  his  teens  when  the  State  of 
Georgia  successfully  defied  the  decree  of  the  feeble 
Federal  government  as  to  the  disposal  of  the  Creek  In 
dians  ;  he  was  a  youth  of  twenty  when,  in  1832,  South 
Carolina  nullified  the  acts  of  Congress  and  did  not 
yield  until  the  great  peacemaker,  Clay,  had  secured  a 
satisfying  reduction  of  the  offending  tariff;  he  was 
thirty-two  years  old  when,  in  1844,  the  legislature  of 
Massachusetts  resisted  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  the 
extent  of  resolutions  threatening  that  such  an  event 
would  l '  drive  these  States  [of  New  England]  into  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union  "  ;  he  had  come  to  middle  life 


16  ALEXAtfDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

when,  in  1850-51,  the  determination  of  Southern 
Democrats  to  exercise  the  right  of  secession  was  with 
great  difficulty  voted  down  by  Southern  Whig 
unionism ;  and  he  had  reached  the  age  of  forty-nine 
years  when,  in  1860-61,  eleven  Southern  States 
brought  an  issue  as  old  as  the  Constitution  to  its 
supreme  and  final  test  by  repealing  the  ordinances 
whereby  they  had  made  themselves  members  of  the 
Union  of  States  and  by  proclaiming  themselves  once 
more  separate  and  sovereign  republics. 

It  is  one  of  the  interesting  facts  of  history  that,  al 
though  disapproving  of  this  action  on  the  part  of  the 
eleven  States  as  unwise  and  avoidable,  Alexander  H. 
Stephens  consistently  held  to  the  State  sovereignty 
idea,  including  the  right  of  secession,  throughout  his 
life,  and,  among  all  the  Confederates,  was  its  ablest 
defender. 

When  a  delicate  male  child  was  born  to  Andrew  B. 
and  Margaret  Stephens  on  a  Georgia  farm  in  1812,  no 
local  prophet  could  have  found  the  slightest  basis  for 
the  prediction  that  he  would  become  a  great  lawyer  ; 
that  he  would  serve  with  distinction  in  the  forum  of 
the  nation  for  many  years ;  that  he  would  be  chosen 
Vice- President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  ;  and  that, 
after  the  tragic  collapse  of  the  secession  movement,  in 
spite  of  lifelong  physical  frailty,  he  would  survive  the 
nightmare  of  reconstruction,  retain  his  hold  on  the 
confidence  of  his  people,  and  die  in  the  governor's 
mansion  of  his  native  State.  For,  although  he  came 
of  good  stock,  nobody  in  his  family  before  him  had 
achieved  distinction.  Like  most  of  the  leaders  of  men 
in  this  country's  earlier  period,  he  was  what  might  be 
called  an  accident,  rising  to  power  and  fame  from 


BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE  17 

humble  surroundings,  arid  illustrating  afresh  the  truth 
that  the  fire  of  genius,  raining  down  from  the  stars, 
may  light  a  flame  where  least  expected.^ 

Alexander  Stephens,  grandfather  of  the  subject  of 
this  biography,  emigrated  from  England  to  Pennsyl 
vania  at  an  unknown  date,  married  Miss  Baskins,  the 
daughter  of  the  owner  of  a  ferry  at  the  junction  of  the 
Juuiata  and  Susquehanna  Eivers,  and,  after  serving 
in  the  war  for  American  independence,  removed  to 
Georgia,  where  he  lived  as  a  small  farmer  on  rented 
land  in  Wilkes  County  until  the  day  of  his  death.  His 
youngest  son,  Andrew  B.  Stephens,  spent  his  life  in  the 
same  neighborhood,  farming  on  a  limited  scale  and 
teaching  a  country  school.  The  children  of  Andrew 
B.  Stephens  by  his  first  wife,  Margaret  Grier,  were 
Mary,  Aaron  Grier,  and  the  afterward  famous  Alex 
ander.  His  second  wife,  Matilda  Lindsay,  bore  him 
one  daughter  and  four  sons — Linton,  the  youngest  of 
the  latter,  who  rose  to  the  position  of  Judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Georgia,  being  throughout  life  the 
object  of  a  remarkably  strong  affection  on  the  part  of 
his  half-brother,  Alexander. 

*  Poverty  and  toil  were  the  chief  distinguishing 
features  of  Stephens' s  childhood.  His  almost  in 
cessant  labors  were  too  often  beyond  the  strength 
of  a  delicate  boy,  and  it  is  probable  that  if  he 
had  been  more  tenderly  cared  for  in  early  youth  he 
would  have  built  up  a  stronger  physical  constitution. 
In  after  years  he  wrote  of  this  drudgery  as  a  matter  of 
course,  relating  that  from  his  sixth  to  his  fifteenth 
year  he  had  little  time  either  for  attending  school  or 
for  the  sports  of  boyhood.  His  father  was  an  "  old- 
field"  schoolmaster,  but  it  appears  that  only  during 


18  ALEXAKDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

brief  periods,  amounting  to  about  two  years  out  of  the 
nine,  could  Alexander  be  spared  from  the  household 
and  the  farm.  His  duties  included  taking  care  of  his 
stepmother's  children,  picking  up  chips,  bringing 
water,  keeping  off  the  calves  during  the  morning  and 
evening  milking,  driving  the  cows  to  and  from  pasture, 
" minding  gaps"  when  hauling  was  done,  running 
errands,  " dropping  corn,"  u  handing"  the  threads 
for  all  the  cloth  that  was  put  on  the  loom,  digging  in 
the  vegetable  garden,  and  every  other  variety  of  work 
that  on  the  plantations  in  those  days  was  usually  as 
signed  to  the  younger  negroes.  At  ten  he  was  so 
quick  and  skilful  in  "  dropping  corn  "  that  he  could 
perform  this  task  "as  fast  as  any  ploughman  could 
<  lay  off.'  "  l  It  is  painful  to  think  of  a  future  states 
man,  ever  an  invalid,  hauling  manure  and  ploughing 
as  a  fragile  boy  of  eleven.  We  are  told  that  at  the  age 
of  twelve  he  was  ' l  one  of  the  regular  ploughers  dur 
ing  the  whole  crop,"  and  that  about  this  time  or 
earlier  he  l  i  frequently  dropped  ten  acres  of  corn  a  day 
in  hills  spaced  four  feet  by  four."  / 

It  is  the  habit  of  small  minds  to  seek  to  disown  a 
past  of  poverty  and  toil  and  to  cultivate  the  point  of 
view  of  the  prosperous  snob.  The  uses  of  adversity 
are  not  always  sweet,  the  experience  too  often  leaving 
a  galled  and  hardened  spirit  in  lieu  of  the  possible 
residuum  of  good  which  finds  expression,  in  part,  in  a 
developed  human  sympathy.  In  the  case  of  Alexander 
H.  Stephens,  excepting  the  probable  injury  to  his 
physical  constitution,  it  may  be  said  that  his  hard/ 
early  life  was  beneficial  in  its  effects.  With  no  disposi 
tion  to  boast  of  his  humble  beginning,  he  referred  to  it 
Johnston  and  Browne,  Life  of  Stephens,^.  31. 


BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE  19 

without  shame  and  with  a  philosopher's  calm,  clearly 
recognizing  its  uses  in  the  development  of  his  charac 
ter.  Its  results  appear  in  his  habits  of  industry,  his 
tenacity  of  purpose,  and  in  his  sympathy  for  the  poor, 
the  weak,  and  the  unfortunate,  which  was  of  such 
generous  proportions  as  at  times  to  become  a  fault* 

Of  his  father,  who  overworked  him  and  neglected 
his  education,  he  wrote  in  after  years  with  respect  and 
admiration,  describing  him  in  a  letter,  dated  Novem 
ber,  1863,  as  "  somewhat  peculiar,  considering  the 
customs J  J  of  his  time.  He  i  i  abhorred  ardent  spirits, ' ' 
*  "detested  indecent  jesting,"  and  no  one  " dared"  to 
indulge  in  either  in  his  presence.  ' l  He  never  made 
or  received  visits  on  Sunday.  When  he  did  not  go 
to  church,  he  made  his  children  stay  at  home,  and  read 
the  Bible.  If  any  of  his  neighbors  called  to  see  him  on 
Sunday,  he  would  soon  give  the  conversation  such  a 
turn  as  would  make  a  reference  to  books  opportune,  by 
way  of  illustration  or  confirmation  of  his  views.  He 
would  then  take  down  a  volume  of  sermons  and  read 
from  them  some  passages  bearing  on  the  point.  This 
usually  resulted  in  the  departure  of  the  unseasonable 
visitor."  After  this  one  learns  with  some  surprise 
that  the  "  exceedingly  exemplary,  moral  and  upright" 
Andrew  B.  Stephens  was  not  a  member  of  any  church. 

Apparently  his  son  did  not  attend  his  school  long 
enough  at  any  one  time  to  acquire  a  distaste  for  his 
methods.  These  are  all  praised.  "He never  scolded  ; 
never  reprimanded  a  scholar  in  a  loud  voice  ;  never 
thumped  the  head,  pulled  the  ears,  or  used  a  ferule." 
Possibly  this  partly  explains  why  he,  so  far  as  his  son 
knew,  was  "  the  only  old-field  teacher  in  those  days  on 
whom  the  boys  never  played  the  prank  of l  turning  out. J ' ' 


20  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

One  of  his  schoolroom  exercises,  which  "the 
scholars  called  '  learning  manners,'  "  evidently  made 
a  deep  impression  on  little  Alexander,  and  was  no 
less  admirable  than  quaint.  It  is  related  that,  "  about 
once  a  month,  on  a  Friday  evening  [afternoon],  after 
the  spelling  classes  had  got  through  their  tasks,"  the 
boys  and  girls  were  directed  to  take  seats  in  rows  fac 
ing  each  other.  Then  the  boy  at  the  head  of  his  row 
would  rise  and  walk  toward  the  centre  of  the  room  and 
the  girl  at  the  head  of  her  row  would  do  likewise. 
1 '  As  they  approached,  the  boy  would  bow  and  the  girl 
drop  a  courtesy — the  established  female  salutation  of 
those  days — and  they  would  pass  on.  At  other  times 
they  were  taught  to  stop  and  exchange  verbal  salu 
tations,  and  the  usual  formulas  of  polite  inquiry,  after 
which  they  retired  and  were  followed  by  the  next  pair. 
These  exercises  were  varied  by  meetings  in  an  imagi 
nary  parlor, — the  entrance,  introduction,  and  reception 
of  visitors,  with  practice  in  *  commonplace  chat ' 
suited  to  the  occasion.  Then  came  the  ceremony  of 
introductions.  The  parties  in  this  case  would  walk 
from  opposite  sides  of  the  room  in  pairs,  and  upon 
meeting,  after  salutations  of  the  two  agreed  upon, 
would  commence  making  known  to  each  other  the 
friends  accompanying  them,  the  boy  saying,  '  Allow 
me,  Miss  Mary,  to  present  to  you  my  friend,  Mr. 
Smith.  Mr.  Smith,  Miss  Jones.'  After  Miss  Mary 
had  spoken  to  Mr.  Smith,  she  would  in  turn  introduce 
her  friends.  These  exercises,  trivial  as  the  description 
may  seem,"  the  Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy 
pointedly  concludes,  i  i  were  of  great  use  to  raw  coun 
try  boys  and  girls,  removing  their  awkwardness  and 
consequent  shyness,  and  the  painful  sense  of  being 


BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE  21 

at  a  disadvantage,  or  the  dread  of  appearing  ri 
diculous.  ' ' 

His  father  was  not  the  boy's  only  instructor  in  those 
early  days.  He  refers  in  his  letters  to  another  whose 
school  he  attended  a  few  months,  and  whose  fondness 
for  the  flowing  bowl,  to  employ  a  curious  euphemism 
of  the  neighborhood,  too  often  led  to  his  becoming 
"  disguised.'7  This  interesting  specimen,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  little  Alexander,  was  once  thrown  to  the  floor 
and  sat  upon  by  the  older  boys  until  he  agreed  to  dis 
miss  school  and  send  for  a  gallon  of  whiskey  with 
which  to  i  i  treat ' '  his  triumphant  conquerors,  who 
doubtless  craftily  took  advantage  of  an  hour  when  he 
was  none  too  steady  on  his  legs.  l  i  Most  of  the  big 
boys,"  we  read,  "  stayed  until  the  spirits  came  and  en 
joyed  the  old  man's  treat  heartily  with  him.  Finally 
they  broke  up  in  great  good  humor.  The  master, 
they  said,  did  get  a  little  disguised,  and  took  home  with 
him  the  jug  and  what  was  left  in  it  after  the  carousal." 
We  gather  that  rough  handling  of  a  teacher  occasion 
ally  was  not  uncommon  and  was  not  condemned  by 
the  parents.  As  a  rule,  the  sternest  discipline  was 
desired  and  prevailed  in  the  "  old-field  "  schools,  but  at 
the  approach  of  holiday  seasons,  public  sentiment  per 
mitted  the  boys  to  "  turn  out "  their  hard  taskmaster 
if  they  could,  and  even  duck  him  in  the  pond. 

What  the  "  turning  out"  prank  really  was  is  not 
made  quite  clear  in  the  letters,  but  a  vivid  description 
of  it  as  witnessed  in  the  adjoining  county  of  Columbia 
in  the  first  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  may  be 
found  in  Georgia  Scenes.  This  book,  written  by  Judge 
Longstreet  about  the  year  1830,  has  a  certain  historical 
value,  its  pictures  of  rural  American  life  almost  a  hun- 


22  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

dred  years  ago  being  regarded  by  a  former  generation 
as  photographic  in  their  accuracy.  The  author  tells  of 
the  incidental  events  at  county  courts,  of  horse  swap- 
pings,  races,  and  wild  fox  hunts  ;  of  dances  that  began 
at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  furnished  remark 
able  exhibitions  of  the  "  double-shuffle,"  the  "  double 
cross  hop,"  and  the  "  good  old  republican  six  reel "  ; 
of  turbulent  debating  society  meetings,  where  native 
eloquence  was  sometimes  enforced  by  the  argumentum 
baculinum  ;  of  "  gander  pullings,"  whereat  the  rival 
ing  efforts  of  galloping  horsemen  to  carry  away  the  head 
of  a  live,  high-hanging  goose  with  a  greased  neck 
afforded  highly  satisfying  entertainment ;  of  "  fist-and- 
skull "  fights,  in  a  ring  under  the  eyes  of  admiring 
friends,  between  two  of  the  l  i  best  men, ' '  or  those  who 
could  knock  out  anybody  in  the  countryside — a  rude 
native  sport  from  which  the  modern  prize-fight  may  be 
recognized  as  a  lineal  offspring;  and  of  the  " turn 
out,"  or  forcible  ejection  of  the  schoolmaster  from  the 
temple  of  learning  by  his  own  pupils.  The  tem 
ple,  in  this  instance,  was  a  log  cabin  in  which  "a 
large  three- inch  plank,  wrought  from  the  half  of  a 
tree's  trunk  entirely  with  the  axe,"  served  the  whole 
school  as  a  writing  desk,  a  long  smooth  log  being  em 
ployed  as  a  bench.  The  teacher  was  sitting  on  this 
"desk,"  with  his  feet  on  the  bench,  when  suddenly 
two  of  the  larger  boys  "  seized  each  a  leg  and  marched 
off  with  it  in  quick  time."  The  immediate  result  was 
that  the  luckless  pedagogue's  head  "first  took  the 
desk,  then  the  seat,  and  finally  the  ground  (for  the 
house  was  not  floored),  with  three  sonorous  thumps  of 
most  doleful  portent. "  In  a  twinkling  he  was  ' '  com 
pletely  buried  with  boys,"  but  managed  to  draw  up 


LIFE  23 

his  right  leg  and  kick  violently,  thus  "laying  out 
about  six  boys  in  various  directions  upon  the  floor." 
These  loudly  complained  of  their  hurts  until  an  on 
looker  exclaimed  :  "  Hut !  Young  Washingtons  mind 
these  trifles  !  At  him  again  !  "  We  are  assured  that 
the  mention  of  Washington  promptly  cured  their 
wounds  and  they  returned  roaring  to  the  battle. 
"  The  left  leg  treated  six  more  boys  as  unceremoniously 
as  the  right,"  but  "the  talismanic  name  had  fallen 
upon  their  ears  before  the  kick,  so  they  were  invulner 
able."  The  struggle  waxed  fiercer  still,  and  the 
youthful  contestants  were  knocked  about  in  all  direc 
tions,  some  of  them  receiving  "  thumps  which  would 
have  placed  the  ruffle- shirted  little  darlings  of  the  pres 
ent  day  [about  1830]  under  the  discipline  of  paregoric 
and  opodeldoc  for  a  week,  but  these  hardy  sons  of  the 
forest  seemed  not  to  feel  them."  Finally  the  ex 
hausted  schoolmaster  surrendered  and  offered  a  day's 
holiday.  The  boys  demanded  a  week,  but  in  the  end 
agreed  to  accept  three  days  as  the  reward  of  victory. 
Set  free,  the  teacher  "  rose  in  a  good  humor  "  and  all 
quitted  the  backwoods  temple  of  learning  in  high 
spirits.1 

Life  was  rude  in  rural  Georgia  in  the  first  decades 
of  the  last  century.  It  was  pretty  rude  even  at  a  later 
period  and  nearer  the  populous  centres  of  the  more 
thickly-settled  States,  if  we  can  judge  from  what 
De  Tocqueville,  Harriet  Martineau,  Mrs.  Trollope, 
and  other  critical  observers  have  recorded. 

Poor  Georgia  boys  of  a  former  generation  must  often 
have  been  reminded  in  Sunday-school  thai/Alexander 
H.  Stephens' s  knowledge  of  the  Bible  caused  him  to  be 
1  Georgia  Scenes,  "The  Turn-Out, "  p.  73. 


24  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

sent  to  college.  In  the  summer  of  1824,  when  he  was 
twelve  years  old,  his  father  took  him  to  the  Sunday- 
school  at  Powder  Creek  meeting-house.  Previously 
he  had  studied  only  the  spelling-book  and  read  a  little 
in  the  New  Testament.  He  was  now  put  into  a  class 
that  began  with  Genesis,  and  soon  became  deeply  in 
terested  in  the  narrative,  devoting  himself  to  it  Sun 
day  mornings  and  evenings  and  at  night  during  the 
week,  reading  by  the  light  of  a  wood -fire  long  after 
the  other  members  of  the  household  were  asleep.  He 
did  not  stop  with  the  lessons  assigned,  but  advanced 
far  ahead  of  his  class,  going  through  Exodus  and  the 
other  Mosaic  books,  and  finally  reading  the  whole 
of  the  Old  Testament  before  the  class  with  which  he 
started  had  finished  the  first  book.  In  his  account  of 
this  work,  he  states  that  its  result  was  no  decided 
religious  impress,  so  far  as  he  was  aware,  but  it  gave 
him  "a  taste  for  reading,  for  history,  for  chronology,'7 
and  it  brought  him  reputation  which  afterward  bore 
fruit. 

In  1826,  when  he  was  fourteen  years  old,  his  father  and 
stepmother  died  within  one  week  of  each  other  and  the 
helpless  orphans  were  separated.  The  children  of  the 
second  marriage  found  homes  with  their  mother's  rela 
tions,  while  Alexander  and  his  brother  Aaron  were  taken 
to  the  house  of  their  uncle  in  the  adjoining  county  of 
Warren.  Here  the  former  was  kept  at  school  irregu 
larly  during  two  brief  summer  terms  and  wrestled 
manfully  with  the  problems  in  "the  old  Federal 
Calculator."  Being  now  nearly  sixteen,  he  was  ex 
pected  to  seek  permanent  employment,  and  he  was 
disposed  to  become  a  merchant's  clerk  ;  but  his  fame 
as  a  Bible  student  in  the  local  Sunday-school  where, 


BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE  25 

young  as  he  was,  lie  often  taught  a  class,  brought  him 
to  the  threshold  of  a  wider  career.  The  superintendent 
offered  to  send  him  to  the  i  i  academy ' '  at  Washington 
in  Wilkes  County.  After  consultation  with  his  uncle, 
he  accepted,  and  soon  began  enthusiastic  work  on  the 
Latin  grammar  and  the  Historice  Sacrce.  He  boarded 
with  Eeverend  Alexander  Hamilton  Webster,  one  of 
the  instructors,  and  became  so  strongly  attached  to 
this  kindly  man,  that  he  adopted  the  latter' s  middle 
name  and  ever  after  signed  himself  as  Alexander 
Hamilton  Stephens.  / 

The  boy  student  did  not  know  that  he  was  being 
closely  observed  by  a  number  of  persons, — ministers, 
Sunday-school  superintendents  and  pious  ladies  con 
nected  with  the  Georgia  Educational  Society,  the  ob 
ject  of  which  organization  was  to  afford  means  of 
education  to  studious  and  serious-minded  boys  suited 
for  the  ministerial  career./  A  formal  proposition  was 
duly  made  to  Alexander,  and  after  a  year  at  the 
Washington  school,  where  he  advanced  rapidly  in 
Latin  and  Greek,  he  was  sent  to  Franklin  College  at 
Athens,  later  the  State  university,  and  entered  the 
freshman  class.***  He,  however,  expressed  doubts  as  to 
his  fitness  for  the  profession  proposed,  and  was  assured 
that  he  would  be  left  entirely  free  in  his  choice  at  the 
proper  time.  Deciding  later  that  he  could  not  meet 
the  wishes  of  the  society  in  this  matter,  he  assumed 
the  debt  and  within  a  reasonable  time  refunded  all  the 
money  that  had  been  expended  on  his  education. 

His  college  career,  to  which  he  looked  back  as  the 
happiest  period  of  his  life,  began  auspiciously  and  with 
"a  rare  piece  of  good  luck."  The  incident  he  thus 
described  was  connected  with  his  entry  examination. 


26  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

In  preparation,  he  had  reviewed  Ccesar  and  Virgil,  but 
Dr.  Waddell  saw  fit  to  employ  Cicero  as  a  test  of  the 
entering  students'  knowledge  of  Latin,  and  began  with 
the  first  oration,  of  which  Alexander  had  never  read  a 
line,  having  studied  only  the  four  orations  against 
Catiline.  Almost  in  despair,  he  borrowed  a  Cicero 
from  one  of  the  boys  and  hurriedly  struggled  with  the 
contents  of  the  opening  pages,  realizing  at  once  that  if 
called  on,  he  would  not  be  able  to  do  himself  credit. 
While  thus  anxiously  engaged,  the  examination  pro 
gressed  ;  the  second  oration  was  read,  and  then  the 
third.  He  saw  reason  to  hope  that  before  his  turn 
came,  the  large  class  would  have  reached  more  familiar 
ground,  and  so  it  was.  When  finally  called  on,  it  fell 
to  his  lot  to  read  the  only  part  of  the  fourth  oration 
against  Catiline  with  which  he  happened  to  be  well  ac 
quainted  — "  where  Cicero  refers  to  the  two  opinions  as 
to  what  should  be  done  with  the  conspirators  ;  that  of 
Cato,  who  thought  they  should  be  executed  ;  and  that 
of  Caesar,  who  opposed  this  sentence,  contending  that 
the  gods  alone  should  take  life."  The  young  student 
had  been  deeply  interested  in  these  views,  because  it 
was  the  first  time  he  had  heard  the  right  of  capital 
punishment  called  in  question.  Reassured  and  self- 
possessed  in  a  moment,  he  now  read  every  word  in  the 
paragraph  correctly  and  answered  satisfactorily  all 
queries  relating  to  grammatical  construction,  thus 
riveting  every  one's  attention.  Later  he  was  similarly 
fortunate  in  being  called  on  to  read  a  portion  of  the 
Greek  New  Testament  with  which  he  was  familiar, 
and  the  impression  made  on  the  venerable  educator, 
Dr.  Waddell,  was  an  unusually  favorable  one. 
jDuring  the  four  years  that  followed  Alexander 


BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE  27 

constantly  won  the  praises  of  the  professors,  and  he 
graduated  at  the  head  of  his  class.  He  was  evidently 
popular  also  among  the  students.  He  states  in  his 
account  of  his  college  life  that  he  never  had  a  quarrel, 
which  is  remarkable,  considering  that  he  was  slight 
and  girlish  in  appearance  (weighing  only  seventy 
pounds),  and  must  have  been  known  as  a  "good" 
boy — a  reputation  apt  to  result  in  persecution.  Ap 
parently  he  was  in  many  respects  the  sort  of  boy  who 
is  ever  in  danger  of  having  his  life  made  miserable  at 
a  boarding  school,  yet  he  declared  that  his  college  days 
were  "  unclouded,  prosperous  and  happy ."  Doubtless 
his  strength  of  character  saved  him.  What  he  lacked 
physically,  was  offset  by  his  courage  and  superior 
mentality.  Later  incidents  abundantly  testify  to  his 
physical  courage.  He  evidently  attracted  all  classes 
of  students.  /  u  My  intimates  and  associates,"  he  wrote 
in  after  years,  i  i  were  a  strange  compound.  Boys  met 
there  [in  his  room]  who  never  met  nor  recognized  each 
other  elsewhere ;  the  most  dissipated  young  men  in 
college  would  come  to  my  room  and  there  meet  the 
most  ascetically  pious.  I  was  always  liberal  in  my 
boyish  entertainments.  I  l  treated 7  as  much  as  any 
other  boy  in  college,  and  yet  my  average  annual  ex 
penses  were  only  two  hundred  and  five  dollars.  My 
entertainments  were  of  an  inexpensive  kind,  but  were 
relished  by  all.  Tobacco  was  not  on  my  list." 
Georgia  college  boys  of  1828-32  gathered  in  the  room 
of  the  future  statesman  and  seem  to  have  really  had  a 
good  time  without  the  aid  of  tobacco,  liquor,  or  cards 
— all  of  which  he  then  outlawed,  although  in  after 
years  he  smoked  and  drank  in  moderation,  and  be 
came  a  devotee  of  whist,  often  declaring  that  an 


28  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

intimate  acquaintance  with  that  game  was  as  necessary 
to  a  lawyer  as  a  knowledge  of  Blackstone. 
/  A  few  years  later,  young  Stephens,  then  a  rising 
lawyer  and  promising  member  of  the  State  legislature, 
was  paying  the  expenses  of  his  half-brother  Linton  at 
the  same  college,  and  almost  daily  writing  him  long 
letters  which  may  properly  be  regarded  as  no  incon 
siderable  part  of  the  latter' s  education.  He  not  only 
pointed  out  the  grammatical  lapses  in  Lin  ton's  replies, 
discoursed  upon  the  various  branches  of  college  study, 
sought  to  inspire  enthusiasm  for  the  classics,  marveled 
at  "  the  glory  that  was  Greece  and  the  grandeur  that 
was  Borne,"  but  discussed  all  manner  of  topics,  in 
cluding  religion,  history,  politics  and  literature. 
These  letters l  are  sophomoric  and  long-winded,  but 
highly  intelligent  and  beautiful  in  spirit./He  sends 
his  brother  five  times  the  amount  of  pocket  money  the 
latter  had  asked  to  borrow  ;  urges  him  to  "  pin  down 
all  interesting  thoughts"  and  not  to  be  too  choice  for 
fear  of  writing  none  j  moralizes  on  death  which  is 
"but  to  take  a  journey";  entreats  Linton  to  be 
always  studious,  to  loathe  everything  dishonorable,  to 
be  ever  dispassionate  and  wise,  assuring  him  that 
never  will  he  be  "  in  more  need  of  cool  thought,  sober 
reflection  and  good  judgment  than  at  present"  ;  in 
structs  him  in  the  early  history  of  American  political 
parties ;  is  reluctant  to  approve  his  critical  objection 
to  the  "cold  conversational  manner"  in  which  the 
praying  minister  had  said,  "Lord,  we  can  hardly 
generalize  our  sins,  much  less  specify  them"  ;  and 
betrays  the  spirit  of  a  maiden  aunt  in  his  excited  com 
ment  on  the  recent  "utterly  disgraceful"  conduct 
1  Found  in  Waddell's  Life  of  Linton  Stephens. 


BOYHOOD  AND  COLLEGE  LIFE  29 

of  some  of  Linton's  associates,  who,  it  appears,  "got 
drunk  and  threw  i  rocks ?  at  the  venerable  preceptor  " 
on  the  campus  at  Athens. 

/  Boys  in  and  just  out  of  college  in  those  days  seem 
to  have  been  more  serious  than  the  college  ' '  men ' '  of 
the  present,  and  not  merely  on  the  religious  side. 
Their  records  show  an  interest  in  the  products  of  the 
classic  age  that  would  now  appear  to  be  out  of  the 
question/  How  many  university  students  would  now 
write  glowingly  to  another,  as  did  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  of  the  deeds  of  Caesar,  Epaminondas  and 
Xenophon,  and  of  the  philosophies  of  Plato,  Socrates 
and  Aristotle? 


CHAPTEE  II 

LAWYER  AND  LEGISLATOR 

/  AFTER  leaving  college,  young  Stephens  taught  one 
country  school  for  four  months,  and  another  for  a  year 
at  a  salary  of  $500,  but  soon  wearied  of  the  "  monotony 
of  the  repetition,"  and  was  sadly  discontented..^  A 
further  difficulty  was  involved  in  the  control  of  the 
older  pupils  by  so  fragile  and  boyish-looking  a  teacher, 
although  courage  to  make  a  determined  effort  was  not 
lacking.  It  is  related  that  on  one  occasion  he  restored 
order  by  severely  applying  the  rod  to  two  "  fully 
grown"  boys,  either  of  whom  was  physically  capable 
of  forcibly  ejecting  him  from  the  room. /Broken  in 
health,  he  gave  up  teaching  and,  after  three  months 
of  recreation,  began  in  1834  to  read  law,  at  Crawford  - 
ville,  in  the  new  county  of  Taliaferro,  within  two 
miles  of  his  boyhood's  home  which  formerly  had  been 
included  in  the  county  of  Wilkes.  Believing  that  he 
had  neither  time  nor  money  to  spare,  he  determined  to 
try  for  admission  to  practice  at  the  next  term  of  the 
court  three  months  later.  He  was  frail  of  body  but 
invincible  of  will,  and  he  drove  himself  like  a  draught- 
horse,  reading  law  night  and  day.  At  this  period  and 
for  years  afterward,  strangers,  supposing  him  to  be  a 
boy,  addressed  him  as  " sonny"  or  " buddy,"  his 
slight  form,  white  brow,  bloodless  cheeks  and  anxious 
eye  giving  him  the  appearance  of  a  youth  of  sixteen 
prematurely  aged  by  disease.  The  ambition  of  so 
young  a  man  to  become  a  lawyer  was  the  subject  of 


LAWYEE  AND  LEGISLATOE  31 

jest  among  those  unacquainted  with  his  powers  of  mind 
and  of  will. 

He  accomplished  his  object  within  the  brief  period 
named,  for  in  his  diary  under  date  of  July  22,  1834, 
it  is  stated  that  he  "  was  this  day  admitted  an  attorney- 
at-law  and  released  from  a  great  burden  of  anxiety." 
Although  reading  law  with  feverish  energy  during 
those  three  and  a  half  months,  his  diary  and  letters 
show  that  other  mental  labor  was  accomplished,  in 
cluding  a  discussion  of  President  Jackson's  policies 
and  a  carefully  prepared  written  speech  delivered  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  in  which  he  denied  South  Carolina's 
right  to  nullify  and  remain  in  the  Union,  but  vig 
orously  asserted  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede  if  the 
"  compact  of  union  "  should  be  violated.  He  thought 
a  separation  of  the  States  need  not  be  feared,  but 
contended  that  "  whenever  the  general  government 
adopts  the  principle  that  it  is  the  supreme  power  of 
the  land,  that  the  States  are  subordinate — mere 
provinces — that  it  can  compel  and  enforce,  and 
commence  to  dispense  its  favors  with  a  partial  hand, 
to  tax  and  oppress  a  few  States  to  the  interest  and 
aggrandizement  of  the  many,  or  otherwise  transcend 
its  powers, — then  will  the  days  of  our  republic  be 
numbered.  For  it  is  false  philosophy  to  suppose  that 
these  States  can  be  kept  together  by  force.  .  .  .  But 
let  It  be  the  established  policy  of  the  government  that 
it  has  no  power  over  a  State  withdrawing  from  the 
Union  when  in  her  deliberate  judgment  the  compact 
has  been  broken,  and  the  others  will  soon  cease,  or 
rather  never  begin  to  oppress ;  for  the  Union  should 
be  an  advantage  to  all  but  an  injury  to  none."  l  /* 
1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  88. 


32  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

In  these  reflections  of  a  young  Georgian  of  twenty- 
two  years,  we  hear  the  echoes  of  the  convulsion 
through  which  the  country  had  so  recently  passed,  and 
in  which  the  growing  bitterness  of  the  strife  over  slav 
ery  was  no  little  concerned,  although  the  tariff  was  the 
burning  issue.  The  utterance  of  Stephens  but  mildly 
suggests  the  temper  of  the  time  and  of  his  section. 
South  Carolina,  whose  ordinance  of  nullification 
brought  the  crisis,  did  not  stand  alone  ;  did  not  alone 
complain  that  the  protective  system  was  ruining  her 
commerce,  depressing  her  agriculture  and  making 
bankrupts  of  her  citizens,  while  the  manufacturing 
States  of  the  North  reaped  the  benefits.  The  other 
Southern  States,  all  agricultural,  saw  the  matter  in  the 
same  light,  and  a  practically  united  South  awaited  the 
outcome.1  True,  there  were  unswerving  unionists  who 
reminded  their  excited  neighbors  that  they  had  not 
been  sparing  in  their  censures  when  New  England 
threatened  resistance  to  the  Embargo.  "  There  was 
not  a  man  among  us,"  reads  a  speech  of  David  Williams, 
1 1  who  did  not  pronounce  the  Hartford  Convention  a 
traitorous  association."  But  the  clash  of  interests  in 
connection  with  the  tariff,  and  the  clash  of  sentiment  in 
regard  to  slavery,  filled  men  with  bodeful  thoughts  of 
the  future.  The  observant  visiting  foreigner,  De 
Tocqueville,  prophesied  an  inevitable  and  necessary 
separation  of  North  and  South.1  Fortunately  Clay,  the 

1  A  "  Kemonstrance  "  of   the   Georgia  legislature,  December  19, 
1828,  addressed  to  the  manufacturing  States  of  the  North,  which 
"sordidly  pursue  their  own  interests  "  at  the  expense  of  the  agri 
cultural  section  south  of  them,  threatens  the  "effectual  remedy" 
of  nullification  if  the  "unconstitutional  measures  are  persevered 
in." 

2  De  Tocqueville's  Democracy  in  America,   Oilman  edition,  pp. 
496-511. 


LAWYEE  AND  LEGISLATOE  33 

peacemaker,  offered,  and  Calhoun  accepted  the  propo 
sition  gradually  to  scale  down  all  duties  each  two  years, 
so  that  in  1841  the  bottom  limit  should  be  reached  at 
a  twenty  per  cent,  basis.  But  for  this  compromise,  all 
the  indications  point  to  a  war  or  a  peaceable  dissolu 
tion  of  the  Union  in  1832-3. 

As  a  young  lawyer,  Stephens  appears  to  have  been 
but  little  happier  than  as  a  school -teacher.  "^"Constitu 
tionally  delicate,  he  was  now  worn  by  his  excessive 
labors  of  preparation  for  admission  to  the  bar./  "My 
weight  is  ninety-four  pounds,"  he  records  in  his  diary, 
"  my  height  sixty-seven  inches,  my  waist  twenty  inches 
in  circumference,  and  my  whole  appearance  that  of  a 
youth  of  seventeen. "  Then  and  throughout  life  he 
was  practically  a  brain  without  a  body,  the  physical 
promptings  so  manifest  in  the  average  man  seeming  in 
a  sense  to  have  been  benumbed.  It  is  recorded  that 
Stephens  once  or  twice  was  tenderly  interested  for  / 
a  temporary  period  in  attractive  members  of  the  op 
posite  sex,  and  that  he  once  stated  that  he  did  not  marry 
because  he  feared  to  become  a  helpless  invalid.  He* 
had  abundant  cause  for  such  fear,  but  the  full  story  of 
his  life  suggests  the  probability  that  an  equally  power-  ? 
ful  reason  was  that  his  nature — the  product  of  an  over-  ' 
developed  brain  in  a  frail  and  sickly  body — did  not 
often  cry  out  for  and  imperiously  demand  any  other 
than  platonic  love. 

To  this  may  perhaps  in  part  be  traced  the  incurable 
melancholy  which  evidently  afflicted  him  through-/ 
out  life.  Long  after  the  period  of  youthful  affecta 
tions  and  deceptive  ardors  had  passed,  he  wrote 
to  his  half-brother,  Linton,  always  his  closest  in 
timate :  "Life  to  me  is  desolate.  For  what  object 


34  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

should  I  wish  to  live  ?  Weak  and  sickly,  I  was  sent 
into  the  world  with  a  constitution  barely  able  to  sus 
tain  the  vital  functions.  Health  I  have  never  known 
and  do  not  expect  to  know."  In  1857,  at  the  mature 
age  of  forty -five,  he  wrote  :  "  Few  that  see  me  and  as 
sociate  with  me  daily  have  a  conception  of  what  tor 
ture  and  misery  I  endure.  No  mortal  has  ever  had 
more  reason  to  despair — to  curse  his  fate  and  die — than 
I  have  had."  He  appears  to  have  said  more  than  this 
in  a  letter  to  his  half-brother  in  1858.  "  You  may  be 
right,"  replied  Linton  Stephens,  "in  your  opinion  that 
you  have  succeeded  in  keeping  to  yourself  the  secret 
of  a  misery  that  has  preyed  upon  you,  and  yet  preys 
upon  you.  .  .  .  Your  letter  produced  strange  feel 
ings  in  me.  I  can't  define  them  very  well,  but  they 
are  not  pleasant  feelings.  I  have  burned  the  letter. 
It  has  been  rather  a  rare  thing  with  me  to  burn  one  of 
your  letters.  I  have  piles  of  them  on  hand  ;  one  in  a 
similar  strain  with  the  last,  but  none  like  it  or  ap 
proaching  it  in  its  energy,  its  despair,  and  yet  its  un 
wavering  resolution  to  bear  on  and  despair  on.  You 
must  allude  to  something  I  don't  understand.  I  don't 
feel  anything  that  might  be  called  curiosity  about  it, 
but  I  do  feel  a  deep  interest  in  it.  I  had  thought  that 
no  human  heart  had  ever  felt  a  woe  or  an  agony  with 
out  yearning  to  tell  it  to  some  sympathizing  ear."  * 
Whether  the  full  confidence  thus  invited  was  ever 
given,  the  records  do  not  show. 

The  unexplained  miseries  of  Dean  Swift  are  suggested. 

Certainly  Stephens' s  diary  and  his  letters  would  indicate 

that  his  soul  was  not  less  tortured.     Physical  weakness 

and  pain,  apparently,  were  but  the  half  of  his  bitter 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  pp.  340,  341. 


LAWYEE  AND  LEGISLATOR  35 

cup.  The  more  wonderful  are  the  achievements  of  one 
thus  preyed  upon  in  body  and  harrowed  in  mind.  By 
the  power  of  an  invincible  will  he  rose  above  his  mis 
ery,  found  distraction  in  incessant  labor,  in  the  duties 
of  life,  the  companionship  of  friends,  in  the  rewards  of 
honorable  ambition,  and  in  helping  others  to  reach  the 
happiness  which — as  it  would  appear — he  could  not  se 
cure  for  himself.  His  works  of  charity  and  philan 
thropy  were  constant  and  countless.  He  was  lavish  of 
hospitality  and  gave  to  all  who  asked,  even  the  unde 
serving.  His  pity  and  sympathy  for  the  unfortunate 
were  such  as  only  a  tried  and  travailing  spirit  could 
feel.  He  provided  a  college  education  for  more  than_ 
fifty  young  men  and  women.  During  his  life  he  made 
much  money — out  of  his  law  practice,  and  $75,000 
from  his  historical  writings  alone— but  he  spent  it  all, 
chiefly  for  the  benefit  of  others,  and  when  he  died  his 
body  servant  was  reported  to  be  richer  than  he. 
f  During  his  first  year  as  a  struggling  young  lawyer, 
Stephens  "  lived  on  six  dollars  a  month,  made  his  own 
fires,  and  blacked  his  own  boots."  1  His  fees  for  the 
year  amounted  to  four  hundred  dollars,  but  were  notL  +*  | 
promptly  and  perhaps  never  entirely  paid.  His  first  / 
appearance  as  a  member  of  the  bar  on  the  circuit  wasV  ^ 
made  at  Washington  in  Wilkes  County./Being  with-  j 
out  the  means  to  take  the  journey  thither  in  a  desirable 
manner,  he  walked  ten  miles  in  the  cool  of  a  July  night, 
carrying  saddle-bags  with  a  change  of  clothing.  Ar 
riving  at  his  uncle's  farm,  he  stopped  there  till  dawn, 
borrowed  a  horse  and  rode  the  remaining  ten  miles. 
When  he  neared  Washington,  he  dismounted,  donned 
fresh  clothes,  a  suit  of  white  cotton,  and  so  was  enabled 
1  Cleveland's  Letter*  and  Speeches  of  Stephens,  p.  44. 


36  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

to  present  a  fairly  creditable  appearance  in  the  court 
room. 

One  would  expect  so  poor  a  young  lawyer  to  have 
an  eye  single  to  the  patronage  of  the  wealthy,  but  from 
the  outset  he  showed  an  eagerness  to  defend  the  desti 
tute  and  helpless,  who  could  pay  him  little  or  nothing 
at  all.  Writing  to  Linton  Stephens,  June  2,  1842,  he 
says  :  "I  was  absent  yesterday  and  the  day  before  at 
Warrenton  attending  the  trial  of  a  negro,  charged 
with  the  offense  of  assault  and  battery,  with  intent  to 
murder,  on  a  white  man.  I  defended  him  and  he  was 
acquitted.'7  '/It  is  stated  that  on  several  occasions 
"  where  parties  were  likely  to  become  victims  of  pop 
ular  prejudice,"  he  volunteered  his  services  and  saved 
the  accused.  /A  slave  woman  in  his  own  county  was 
about  to  be  convicted  of  an  attempt  to  murder  by 
poisoning,  the  evidence  being  very  strong,  though  all 
circumstantial.  Becoming  convinced  of  her  inno 
cence,  Stephens  volunteered  in  her  defense,  and,  after 
listening  to  his  argument,  the  jury  promptly  rendered 
a  verdict  of  acquittal.2  The  authority  just  referred  to, 
who  wrote  in  1866,  declares  that  those  who  heard  it 
will  never  forget  a  speech  made  by  Stephens  in  Green 
County  in  behalf  of  a  woman,  "  poor,  desolate  and  un 
able  to  employ  counsel."  The  offense  is  not  men 
tioned,  but  the  judge  is  quoted  as  saying  after  her  ac 
quittal :  "This  was  the  only  case  tried  before  me 
whilst  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  which  my 
admonitions  were  unheeded.7'  / Stephens' s  power  over 
»^^"a  jury  was  not  merely  a  matter  of  eloquence,  but  was 
\  probably  in  part  the  result  of  the  fact  that  early  in  hjs 

1  Waddell's  Life  of  Linton  Stephens,  p.  37. 

2  Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  p.  235. 


LAWYER  AND  LEGISLATOR  37 

career  he  became  the  idol  of  the  common  people. 
Eobert  Toombs  was  wont  to  say,  according  to  report, 
that  Stephens  had  an  advantage  over  all  the  lawyers  in 
Georgia  in  the  fact  that  the  jury  would  overlook  sworn 
testimony  in  order  to  give  him  his  verdict.  It  was 
said  by  some  observers  that  Toombs  "  commanded " 
while  Stephens  always  " persuaded"  the  twelve  men 
whose  votes  were  to  decide  the  issue. 

"  This  day,"  he  wrote  in  his  diary,  September  10, 
1834,  "  I  was  employed  by  Mr.  Hilsman  with  the  con 
ditional  fee  of  twenty  dollars."  This  was  one  of  Ste 
phens'  s  first  cases,  and  it  made  his  reputation,  locally, 
while  he  was  still  less  than  twenty-three  years  of  age. 
The  case  referred  to  the  proper  custody  of  a  child  whose 
grandfather  had  virtually  kidnapped  it,  on  the  ground 
that  its  widowed  mother  had  now  married  a  man  of 
intemperate  habits  and  that  it  was  thus  in  unsafe 
hands.  Stephens  defended  the  mother's  rights  with  a 
i i  passionate  eloquence  which  none  of  those  present 
could  withstand."  l  After  judgment  was  duly  pro 
nounced  in  her  favor,  a  cousin  of  the  defeated  grand 
father  was  reported  as  saying  :  "  When  that  little  fel 
low  began  to  argue  that  even  among  the  beasts  of  the 
forest  the  mother  was,  by  the  great  law  of  nature,  the 
keeper  of  her  offspring  and  would  fight  even  to 
death  for  their  custody,  and  everybody  [in  the  court 
room]  fell  to  crying,  I  knew  that  Isaac  would  have  to 
give  up  Martha  Ann." 

Stephens' s  entry  in  his  diary,  July  24,  1834,  stating 

that  on  that  day  he  had  been  engaged  for  the  first  time 

in  his  profession,  is  followed  by  a  fervent  prayer  that 

"  a  superintendent  Providence  may  look  propitiously  " 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  97. 


38  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

upon  him  at  the  beginning  of  his  career.  The  poverty- 
ridden  yet  devout  young  man  prayed  "that  He  may, 
though  unseen,  direct  me  in  the  right  path  in  all 
things,  and  in  all  my  intercourse  with  mankind  ;  that 
He  may  inspire  me  with  a  sound  mind  and  quick  ap 
prehension,  and  that  He  may  so  overrule  all  my  acts 
and  all  my  thoughts  and  my  whole  course,  that  a  use 
ful  success  may  attend  all  my  efforts ;  that  I  may  not 
be  a  useless  blank  in  creation  and  an  injury  to  men ; 
but  that  I  may  be  of  benefit  yet  to  my  fellow  beings. " 
Surely  this  prayer  was  in  part  answered  within  the 
year.  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  stay  of  the  weak  and 
helpless  and  friend  of  all  the  world,  was  once  asked, 
late  in  life,  what  he  considered  the  highest  compli 
ment  he  had  ever  received,  and  gravely  replied  by 
telling  how  a  white-haired  old  negro  at  Crawfordville, 
being  asked  by  a  visitor  if  he  knew  the  master  of 
"Liberty  Hall,"  said:  "Yassuh,  I  knows  Mars' 
Aleck — I  knows  him  mighty  well ;  he's  kinder  to 
dawgs  7n  other  mens  is  to  people." 

A  former  law  student  under  Stephens,  Mr.  Z.  I. 
Fitzpatrick,  of  Godfrey,  Ga.,  from  whom  the  fore 
going  anecdote  was  received,  has  also  furnished  the 
following  story,  giving  as  his  authority  reputable  wit 
nesses  of  the  events  recounted  :  Early  in  the  fifties  a 
Georgia  college  boy  named  Willet  killed  a  classmate 
named  James  with  a  pocket  knife.  The  provocation 
is  not  mentioned,  but  the  fact  that  James  belonged 
to  a  rich  and  powerful  family  and  Willet  was  poor 
and  friendless,  taken  in  connection  with  the  part 
played  by  Stephens  at  the  trial,  indicates  pretty  clearly 
that  the  tragedy  resulted  from  the  contemptuous  treat 
ment  of  alleged  "poor  white  trash"  by  an  overbear- 


LAWYER  AND  LEGISLATOR  39 

ing  young  aristocrat.  The  wealthy  father  and  uncles 
of  James  "  vowed  to  have  Willet  hung  77  and  employed 
the  most  powerful  lawyers  of  the  State,  including 
T.  R.  R.  Cobb,  Judge  Cone  and  the  famed  Robert 
Toombs.  Stephens  was  sought  also,  but  he  refused  to 
be  engaged  for  the  prosecution.  The  Willets,  who 
had  no  money  to  pay  lawyers,  great  or  small,  then 
timidly  asked  him  to  defend  their  boy,  and  he  prom 
ised  to  do  so.  "  When  Cone  spoke,'7  our  informant 
writes,  "  all  said  :  *  It  is  very  bad  for  Willet.7  When 
Cobb  spoke,  all  said  :  *  Willet  will  be  hung.'  And 
when  the  awful  lion,  Toombs,  roared  and  thundered 
against  poor  Willet,  all  said  :  i  We  see  the  rope 
around  his  neck  ! '  "  Stephens  spoke  four  hours  "  and 
had  jurors,  witnesses  and  spectators  now  shouting 
with  joy  and  now  weeping  with  pity  and  sympathy." 
He  pointed  to  the  powerful  James  family,  their  wealth 
and  influence,  their  great  lawyers  and  great  lawyers' 
fees,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  on  the  other  to  the  poor 
Willets,  helpless,  unable  to  employ  counsel  in  defense 
of  their  son  who  in  his  hot,  reckless  youth  had  struck 
out  madly  against  individual  persecution  and  class 
wrong.  The  orator  told  the  Bible  story  of  the  slayer 
fleeing  to  the  City  of  Refuge  with  blood-hunting 
avengers  howling  at  his  heels,  and  "  then,  with  a  burst 
of  eloquence  said  :  i  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  you  are 
poor  Willet7  s  City  of  Refuge.  Here  he  comes  in  his 
poverty  and  helplessness,  running,  fleeing  for  his  very 
life,  pursued  by  relentless  enemies  in  the  form  of 
wealthy  prosecutors  and  powerful  lawyers.  We  ask 
you  to  receive  him  and  protect  him.'  "  The  jury 
went  out,  wiping  their  eyes,  and  returned  in  ten  min 
utes  with  a  verdict  of  not  guilty. 


40  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

By  this  time  Stephens' s  powers  had  been  displayed 
in  a  wider  field,  and  even  those  who  had  heard  the 
greatest  orators  of  the  time,  including  Clay,  Calhoun 
and  Webster,  rendered  him  their  tribute.  On 
February  2,  1848,  when  Lincoln  and  Stephens  were 
in  Congress  together,  both  representing  the  Whig 
party,  and  were  aged  thirty-nine  and  thirty-six  years 
respectively,  the  former  wrote  to  his  law  partner  in 
Springfield,  111.  :  "  I  take  up  my  pen  to  tell  you  that 
Mr.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  a  little,  slim,  pale-faced 
consumptive  man,  with  a  voice  like  Logan's  has  just 
concluded  the  very  best  speech  of  an  hour's  length  I 
ever  heard.  My  old,  withered,  dry  eyes  are  full  of 
tears  yet."  ' 

^  Among  the  reasons  for  Stephens' s  immediate  and 
great  success  at  the  bar,  according  to  one  authority, 2 
writing  in  1866,  was  the  fixed  rule  he  adopted  of  never 
taking  a  case  until  it  was  thoroughly  examined  and 
he  was  satisfied  that  the  suitor  applying  for  redress 
was  entitled  to  it  under  the  law.  In  the  matter  of 
capital  offenses,  his  usual  course  was  not  to  appear 
against  the  accused,  and  in  no  case  did  he  ever  consent 
to  do  so  unless  fully  convinced  not  only  of  guilt 
but  of  the  absence  of  any  extenuating  circum 
stances. 

It  was  inevitable  in  those  days  that  every  young 
lawyer  of  marked  ability  should  seek  or  be  induced 
to  accept  political  office.  Stephens  was  no  exception. 
In  1836  he  was  nominated  for  the  lower  branch  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  Georgia  on  a  State  rights  ticket. 
He  was  violently  opposed  because  of  his  criticism  of 

1Nicolay's  Short  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  77. 
9  Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  p.  234. 


LAWYEE  AND  LEGISLATOK  41 

the  doctrine  of  nullification,  which  was  almost  uni 
versally  approved  in  Taliaferro  County,  and  because 
of  his  vigorous  objection  to  the  formation  of  a  vigilance 
committee  to  punish  persons  found  circulating  in 
cendiary  documents  among  the  slaves  with  a  view  of 
stirring  them  up  to  discontent  and  revolt. l 

As  to  nullification,  he  explained  that**  a  State  had 
every  right  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  if  she  be 
lieved  the  Federal  compact  had  been  violated,  but 
had  no  right  to  remain  in  the  Union  and  refuse  to 
obey  the  Federal  statutes."  As  regards  the  obnoxious 
agents  of  the  Northern  Abolitionists,  he  appealed  to 
the  people  from  the  stump  to  take  legal  steps  only 
against  them  ;  as  the  people  valued  liberty,  let  them 
uphold  the  supremacy  of  the  law.  He  supported  both 
positions  so  well  and  was  so  persuasive  that  he  was 
elected  by  "  a  vote  more  than  double  that  of  his 
highest  competitor.77  Though  an  invalid  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  session,  he  acquitted  himself  with 
much  credit  and  was  returned  without  opposition  in 
1837.  So  poor  was  his  physical  condition  in  the 
following  year  that  he  was  compelled  to  resign  all 
business  and  take  a  sea  voyage  to  Boston,  returning 
southward  by  way  of  New  York  City,  Saratoga  and 
Green  Briar  White  Sulphur  Springs.  In  spite  of  con 
tinuing  ill  health,  he  was  sent  back  to  the  legislature 
in  1838,  1839,  and  1840.  In  1841  he  declined  a 
nomination,  devoting  himself  entirely  to  his  lucrative 
law  practice  until  he  was  elected  to  the  State  Senate 
in  1842.  During  his  long  absence  on  the  Northern 
trip  referred  to,  his  business  was  looked  after  by  Eobert 
Toombs,  of  Washington,  Ga. 

1  Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  p.  50. 


42  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

The  friendship  of  the  invalid  and  the  robust, 
u leonine7'  fellow  lawyer  was  from  the  outset  remark 
able  for  fidelity  and  generosity  on  both  sides.  Stephens 
even  refused  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  United 
States  Senate  in  opposition  to  his  friend  and  neighbor 
Toombs.  In  1851  when  the  two  men  were  struggling 
shoulder  to  shoulder  to  stem  the  tide  of  disunion  in 
Georgia,  Toombs  publicly  declared  that  Stephens 
"  carried  more  brains  and  more  soul  for  the  least  flesh 
than  any  man  God  Almighty  ever  made."  It  has 
been  suggested,  and  seems  not  unlikely,  that  the 
intellect  of  Stephens  dominated  that  of  Toombs  until 
the  crisis  of  secession,  when  for  the  first  time  they 
parted  company  and  pursued  opposite  policies. 

As  has  been  noted,  t;  Stephens  began  his  public 
career  in  1836  as  candidate  for  the  legislature  on  the 
State  rights  ticket,  and  this  was  his  leading  political 
principle  throughout  life.  Although  he  acted  with  the 
Whigs  for  years,  he  was  always  nearer  to  the  Demo 
crats  in  this  particular.  He  did  not,  however,  join 
the  latter  until  the  disintegration  of  the  Whig  party, 
the  intensity  of  the  sectional  struggle  over  slavery 
virtually  forcing  the  great  majority  of  Southern  men 
into  one  organization.  His  early  political  tendencies 
are  clearly  shown  in  the  comment  of  later  years  on  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  1840.  "I  was  opposed," 
he  said,  "to  the  administration  of  Van  Buren  and 
also  to  the  support  of  Harrison.  I  wanted  the  State 
rights  party  of  Georgia  to  stand  by  the  nomination 
of  George  M.  Troup  1  which  I  had  considerably^  con- 

1As  governor  of  Georgia,  1823-27,  Troup  had  vigorously  as 
serted  State  sovereignty  and  defied  John  Quincy  Adams's  ad 
ministration. 


! 


LAWYER  AND  LEGISLATOR  43 

tributed  in  getting  the  men  of  that  party  in  the  /* 
legislature  of  1839  to  make.  But  in  the  summer  of  ' 
1840  a  convention  of  that  party  was  held  at  Milledge- 
ville,  and  withdrew  the  nomination  of  Troup  and 
declared  for  Harrison.  I  was  not  in  the  convention. 
I  acquiesced,  though  I  thought  it  bad  policy.  There 
were  but  two  candidates  in  the  field,  Harrison  and 
Van  Buren.  I  preferred  Harrison  as  a  choice  of  evils. 
Indeed,  the  greatest  objection  I  had  to  Harrison's 
nomination  was  the  political  alliances  it  would  bring 
about.  Him  I  considered  sound  enough  on  all 
political  and  constitutional  questions  ;  but  his  sup 
porters  generally  at  the  North  were  the  old  Centralists 
and  Consolidationists,  known  in  1800  as  Federalists." 
Nevertheless,  Stephens  seems  to  have  had  no  love 
for  the  representatives  of  the  party  of  Thomas  Jeffer 
son.  As  late  as  1855,  in  a  letter  from  Washington,  he 
speaks  of  the  Democrats  from  the  South  as  i  i  generally 
a  good-for-nothing  set,"  1  and  not  until  1848  does  he 
appear  to  have  begun  to  appreciate  Calhoun's  powers 
at  their  true  value.  His  attitude  was  not  altogether  un 
like  that  of  his  Whig  colleague,  Toombs,  who  once  re 
marked  to  Bishop  Pierce  that  they  were  engaged  in 
pretty  much  the  same  business — one  was  fighting  the 
devil  and  the  other  the  Democrats.2  Stephens  was 
independent  enough  to  change  parties  when  he  thought 
it  desirable,  but  during  his  earlier  career  he  was  a  fairly 
good  partisan.  In  a  letter  written  in  1843  he  speaks 
of  meeting  in  Dade  County  some  of  the  "  cleverest 
people"  in  Georgia,  "  though  they  are  Democrats." 
In  like  manner  Miss  Yarina  Howell,  of  Mississippi, 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  291. 

2  Pleasant  A.  Stovall,  Life  of  Robert  Toomla,  p.  10. 


44  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

writing  in  1844  of  Jefferson  Davis,  whom  she  married 
within  a  year,  is  quoted  :  "  Would  you  believe  it,  he 
is  refined  and  cultivated,  and  yet  he  is  a  Democrat ! " 
Those  were  the  days  when  haughty  Whigs  of  very 
tender  years  hurled  at  the  equally  contemptuous  sons 
of  Georgia  Democrats  this  crushing  gBarge  : 

"  Whigs 
Eat  figs. 
Democrats 
Eat  dead  rats !» 

And  even  adult  Whigs  were  wont  to  describe  the 
Democrats  as  the  "wool  hat  boys,"  or,  as  it  would 
now  be  expressed,  "the  unwashed."  It  does  not  ap 
pear,  however,  that  in  the  South — except  in  certain 
localities — respectability  and  social  position  were  un 
equally  divided  between  the  two  parties. 

Stephens  was  stumping  Dade  County  as  a  candidate 
for  Congress  when  he  wrote  the  letter  referred  to 
above,  in  which  he  also  said  :  "  Last  year  our  [Whig] 
ticket  got  but  one  vote  in  the  county— this  year  I 
think  I  shall  get  at  least  fbjrty.";  In  this  year,  1843,  a 
vacancy  had  occurred  in  the  Congressional  representa 
tion,  and  to  fill  it  James  H.  Starke  was  nominated  by 
the  Democrats  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens  by  the 
Whigs.  The  Democratic  party  was  the  stronger  and 
Stephens  found  it  necessary  to  overcome  a  majority  of 
about  three  thousand,  which  he  olid  after  an  exciting 
and  exhausting  campaign  full  of  amusing  features. 
The  frail  boyish-looking  candidate  rode  or  drove  long 
distances  in  all  weathers  and  delivered  speech  after 
speech,  facing  older  and  more  experienced  orators 
with  a  pluck  for  which  there  is  scarcely  a  parallel. 


LAWYEE  AND  LEGISLATOR  45 

After  he  had  vanquished  all  his  minor  opponents, 
Judge  Walter  T.  Colquitt,  then  regarded  as  the  ablest 
stump  speaker  in  the  State,  was  pitted  against  him. 
Colquitt  was  discomfited  in  the  midst  of  his  attack 
by  Stephens' s  production  of  records  showing  that  the 
former  had  once  held  precisely  the  position  for  which 
he  was  now  censuring  the  latter — that  it  was  unneces 
sary  for  Georgia  to  pension  her  disabled  veterans  of 
the  Indian  wars  inasmuch  as  the  central  government 
was  itself  performing  this  duty.*  It  was  related  by 
Georgians  of  the  past  generation  that  in  the  beginning 
of  this  joint  debate  Judge  Colquitt  contemptuously  re 
ferred  to  the  undersize  and  insignificant  appearance  of 
a  youthful  upstart  who  dared  to  face  his  betters.  "  I 
could  swallow  him  whole  and  never  know  the  differ 
ence,"  he  said.  "Yes,"  quickly  retorted  Stephens, 
"  and  if  you  did  there  would  be  more  brains  in  your 
belly  than  there  ever  will  be  in  your  head  !  " — getting 
the  laugh  on  his  antagonist  and  gaining  an  immediate 
advantage,  for  such  lively,  if  questionable,  passages  at 
arms  were  highly  relished  by  the  sovereign  voter  of 
that  period,  j  Stephens' s  quickness  of  wit  is  not  ren 
dered  any  less  marked  by  the  fact  that  his  favorite 
Scott  had  long  before  caused  the  dwarf  in  Kenil- 
worth  to  make  virtually  the  same  retort  to  a  gibing 
persecutor.  He  had  probably  read  the  novel  several 
years  previous  to  this  time,  as  his  early  letters  contain 
admiring  references  to  Sir  Walter's  works. 

The  free  and  easy  customs  on  the  Georgia  hustings  in 
those  days  may  be  further  illustrated  by  an  anecdote  re 
lated  of  one  of  Stephens' s  arduous  campaigns  after  he 
became  a  Democrat.  More  than  once  he  felt  compelled 
to  stimulate  his  feeble  and  exhausted  frame  with 


46  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

whiskey  while  on  the  stump,  drinking  from  a  small 
bottle  in  the  presence  of  his  approving  audience  with 
the  smiling  remark:  " This  is  pure  Democracy- 
pure  Jeffersonian  Democracy.77  Once  while  speaking 
to  serenaders  from  his  front  door  after  his  election  he 
said  :  ' l  Gentlemen,  I  am  charged  with  being  a  Bour 
bon.  If  you  will  come  with  me  to  my  dining-room  I 
will  introduce  you  to  the  only  Bourbon  I  know  any 
thing  about.'7  Needless  to  say,  this  was  greeted  with 
applause  and  laughter,  followed  by  a  rush  for  the  din 
ing-room. 

Stephens  took  life  and  his  own  work  very  seriously 
on  the  wJiolo,  but  he  was  not  without  a  saving  sense  of 
humor  which  sometimes  prompted  him  to  tell  stories 
at  his  own  expense/  In  his  letters  of  the  war  period 
he  now  and  again  noted  with  amusement  the  surprise 
and  disappointment  involuntarily  expressed  by  per 
sons  on  seeing  the  Yice-President  of  the  Confederacy 
for  the  first  time.  After  one  of  his  speeches  in  the 
Congressional  campaign  of  1843,  according  to  his  own 
account,  an  old  man  bluntly  remarked  to  him  :  * l  Well, 
if  I  had  been  put  in  this  road  to  shoot  a  smart  man, 
you  would  have  passed  safe,  sure."  Another  old  man, 
after  a  bystander  had  pointed  Stephens  out  to  him, 
lifted  his  hands  in  astonishment,  exclaiming,  "Good 
Lord  ! "  A  strange  lady  addressed  him  as  "  buddy  " 
and  urged  him  to  go  to  hear  the  speech  of  that 
"smart  man,"  Stephens.  The  landlady  of  a  way 
side  inn,  entering  the  public  room  where  he  rested 
exhausted  in  the  one  easy  chair,  while  another  man 
stood,  said  to  him  reprovingly  :  "  My  son,  give  the 
gentleman  this  seat."  To  be  mistaken  for  a  boy  was 
almost  a  daily  occurrence,  but  before  the  campaign 


LAWYEB  AM)  LEGISLATOE  47 

was  over  the  "boy"  of  thirty -one  was  known  as  the 
best-informed  man  in  the  Georgia  Whig  party  on  the 
issues  of  the  day,  as  well  as  on  the  history  and  theory 
of  the  government  of  his  country,  and  he  at  once  be 
came  one  of  that  party's  acknowledged  leaders. 
The  Georgia  Journal,  of  October  24,  1843,  re 
joicing  over  the  victory,  acknowledges  in  behalf  of 
the  Whigs  of  the  State  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Stephens 
"for  the  arduous  and  able  service  he  rendered  to  the 
cause,  of  which  he  is  so  noble  an  advocate." 


CHAPTER  in 

STEPHENS  IN  CONGRESS 

STEPHENS' s  first  speech  in  the  House  of  Represent 
atives  was  remarkable  in  that  it  was  virtually  an  ar 
gument  against  the  constitutionality  of  his  own  elec 
tion.  The  Georgia  legislature  had  refused  to  comply 
with  the  requirement  of  Congress  that  the  State  be  di 
vided  into  Congressional  districts  on  the  ground  that 
such  a  requirement  violated  that  clause  in  the  Constitu 
tion  which  reserved  to  the  States  the  right  to  decide 
upon  "  the  times,  places  and  manner  of  holding  elec 
tions  for  senators  and  representatives.'7  Stephens  and 
the  other  representatives  from  Georgia  were,  therefore, 
elected  not  by  the  district  system  but  on  the  "  general 
ticket."  He  preferred  the  district  system,  thought  the 
majority  of  Georgians  did  also,  and  wished  to  bring 
the  question  up.  While  emphatically  expressing  his 
opposition  to  any  invasion  by  the  Federal  government 
of  the  rights  of  the  States,  he  contended  that  Congress 
possessed  the  power  under  the  Constitution  of  regulat 
ing  such  elections  and  that  the  repudiated  law  was  a 
proper  exercise  of  that  power.  The  House  voted, 
however,  that  the  "  general  ticket "  election  was  legal 
and  the  Georgia  members  were  seated,  as  Stephens  ex 
pected.  But  his  object  was  attained  when  in  the  fol 
lowing  year  Georgia  voluntarily  changed  to  the  dis 
trict  system,  the  Whigs  being  careful  to  see  to  it  that 
the  adjoining  counties  of  Taliaferro  and  Wilkes  were 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGEESS  49 

incorporated  in  different  districts,  so  that  both  Alex 
ander  Stephens  and  Robert  Toombs  could  represent 
the  State  in  Congress. 

The  great  questions  before  the/ country  at  this 
period  were  "  the  tariff  and  Texas,  '/as  Stephens  noted 
in  a  letter  written  in  April,  1844,  although  there  was 
scarcely  a  year  between  the  Missouri  Compromise  of 
1820  and  the  election  of  Lincoln  in  1860  when  the 
interminable  and  strife-breeding  question  of  slavery 
dropped  entirely  out  of  sight.  By  the  terms  of  Henry 
Clay's  Compromise  of  1833,  which  checked  the  prob 
able  armed  resistance  of  nullifying  South  Carolina, 
all  the  duties  in  excess  of  twenty  per  cent.,  were 
through  a  gradual  scaling  down,  to  be  abolished  in 
ten  years.  But  in  1842,  the  protectionists  having 
gained  strength,  a  bill  was  passed  openly  violating 
this  agreement,  and  was  vetoed  by  President  Tyler. 
A  second  bill  of  a  similar  character  was  also  vetoed, 
but  a  third,  the  Whig  tariff  of  1842,  which  was  less 
objectionable,  received  the  President's  signature.  The 
protectionists  thus  regained  a  part  of  their  lost  ground, 
but  the  tariff  of  1846,  looked  at  from  our  present  view 
point,  was  so  moderate  as  to  provide  for  approximately 
free  trade  conditions.  Under  this  "  free  trade  tariff," 
as  James  G.  Blaine  has  described  it,  the  country 
became  very  prosperous  and  there  was  no  disposition 
to  interfere  with  it  even  when  the  Democrats  after 
1852  came  into  almost  undisputed  control  of  the 
government.  "  The  principle  embraced  in  the  tariff 
of  1846,"  notes  Blaine, 1  "  seemed  for  the  time  so  en 
tirely  vindicated  and  approved  that  resistance  to  it 
ceased,  not  only  among  the  people,  but  among  the 
1  James  G.  Elaine's  Twenty  Year§  of  Congress,  p.  196. 


50  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

protection  economists  and  even  among  the  manu 
facturers  to  a  very  large  extent.  So  general  was  the 
acquiescence  that  in  1856  a  protective  tariff  was  not 
even  suggested  or  reform  hinted  by  any  one  of  the 
three  parties  which  presented  Presidential  candidates. ' ' 
Under  the  circumstances  the  South  Carolinians  must 
have  looked  back  upon  their  nullification  measure  of 
1832  with  great  satisfaction,  inasmuch  as  that  violent 
protest  led  to  the  changed  conditions  which  they  so 
much  desired  and  which  were  now  generally  ap 
proved. 

./  The  annexation  of  Texas,  although  in  itself  a 
temporary  issue  compared  with  the  tariff,  was 
associated  with  the  slavery  question,  and  therefore 
caused  a  more  profound  disturbance^*  On  the  13th  of 
January,  1845,  Milton  Brown,  a  Whig  representative 
from  Tennessee,  after  consulting  with  Alexander  H. 
Stephens1  and  forming  a  definite  policy,  introduced 
a  series  of  joint  resolutions  in  the  House  for  the  ad 
mission  of  Texas.  Several  propositions  had  been 
offered  in  the  committee  of  the  whole  and  rejected, 
but  Stephens  and  seven  other  Whigs  voted  for  the 
Brown  proposal  and  it  was  carried.  In  a  statement 
to  his  constituents  on  February  11,  1845,  Stephens 
said  that  if  he  and  the  seven  other  Whigs  had  voted 
differently  in  the  committee  this  latter  would  likewise 
have  been  rejected.  "  It  was  not  until  the  party  so 
largely  in  the  majority  found  that  they  could  do  noth 
ing  with  their  favorite  scheme  that  they  consented,  or 
rather  were  reluctantly  forced,  to  take  the  Whig 
measure  or  none."  This  measure,  satisfactory  to  and 
proposed  by  Southern  Whigs,  provided  for  the  ad- 
1  Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  p.  71. 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGEESS  51 

/mission  of  Texas  as  a  State  without  the  assumption  of 
-  her  debt  and  with  a  settlement  of  the  slavery  question 
in  accordance  with  the  Missouri  Compromise  line. 
Not  more  than  four  new  States  were  to  be  formed  out 
of  the  great  Texas  domain  at  any  future  time,  and  in 
those  to  the  south  of  36°  30'  slavery  was  to  be  optional 
with  the  people,  while  in  such  as  should  lie  north  of 
that  line  it  should  be  prohibited. 

In  the  agreement  of  1820  the  pro-slavery  South  had 
compromised  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  the  anti- 
slavery  North  had  therefore  won  a  victory.  The  latter 
section,  at  least,  would  naturally  be  expected  to  up 
hold  the  agreement  firmly,  and  at  a  later  period  many 
seemed  to  regard  the  Missouri  Compromise  as  virtually 
a  part  of  the  Constitution  and  inviolable.  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  for  example,  said  it  had  been  "  canonized  in 
the  hearts  of  the  American  people  "  and  described  it 
as  "  a  sacred  thing  which  no  ruthless  hand  would  ever 
be  reckless  enough  to  disturb.77 1  But  it  is  evident 
from  the  records  that  neither  section  showed  a  willing 
ness  to  abide  by  it  except  when  policy  dictated  that 
course.  Thus  we  find  that  the  plan  for  the  annexation 
of  Texas,  offered  by  the  Whig  South  and  strictly  in 
agreement  with  the  "  canonized'7  Missouri  Com 
promise,  aroused  violent  opposition  in  the  anti-slavery 
section. 

In  Massachusetts  the  opposition  took  the  form  of  a 
series  of  threatening  resolutions  passed  by  the  legisla 
ture  and  approved  by  the  governor.  On  March  16, 
1843,  the  Democratic  legislature  of  that  State  resolved 
"that  under  no  circumstances  whatever  can  the  people 
of  Massachusetts  regard  the  proposition  to  admit  Texas 
1  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Life  of  Lincoln,  Vol.  I,  p.  351. 


52  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

into  the  Union  in  any  other  light  than  as  dangerous 
to  its  continuance  in  peace,  in  prosperity,  and  in  the 
enjoyment  of  those  blessings  which  it  is  the  object  of 
a  free  government  to  secure."  l  Again  on  March  15, 
1844,  the  legislature,  then  with  a  Whig  majority,  re 
solved  : 

.  .  .  "That  the  project  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  unless  arrested  on  the  threshold,  may  tend  to 
drive  these  States  [of  New  England]  into  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union."8 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  further  resolutions, 
passed  on  February  22,  1845,  which  the  governor  of 
the  State  approved : 

"Resolved,  .  .  .  And  as  the  powers  of  legisla 
tion,  granted  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
to  Congress,  do  not  embrace  a  case  of  the  admission  of 
a  foreign  State  or  foreign  territory,  by  legislation  into 
the  Union,  such  an  act  of  admission  would  have  no 
binding  force  whatever  on  the  people  of  Massachu 
setts."  3 

In  further  resolutions  of  the  same  series  it  was  de 
clared  that  the  people  of  Massachusetts  were  "  de 
termined  to  submit  to  undelegated  powers  in  no 
body  of  men  on  earth,"  and  would  u  never  con 
sent  to  the  use  of  the  powers  reserved  to  themselves 
to  admit  Texas,  or  any  other  State  or  territory  now 
without  the  Union,  on  any  basis  than  the  perfect 
equality  of  freemen"  ;  also  that  "while  slavery  or 
slave  representation  forms  any  part  of  the  claims  or 

1  Acts  and  Resolves  of  Massachusetts,  Ch.  20,  p.  68. 
zlbid.,  Ch.  87,  pp.  319-320. 
3  Ibid.,  Ch,  39,  pp.  558-599. 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGBESS  53 

conditions  of  admission,  Texas,  with  their  consent, 
can  never  be  admitted. "  Even  after  the  Federal 
government  had  deliberately  acted  and  the  argument 
was  closed,  there  were  further  resolutions  on  March, 
26,  1845,  approved  by  the  governor,  which  read  in 
part  as  follows  : 

"Resolved,  That  Massachusetts  hereby  refuses  to 
acknowledge  the  act  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  authorizing  the  admission  of  Texas,  as  a  legal 
act,  in  any  way  binding  her  from  using  her  utmost 
exertions  in  cooperation  with  other  States,  by  every 
lawful  and  constitutional  measure  [!],  to  annul  its 
conditions  and  defeat  its  accomplishment."  * 

Massachusetts  wisely  concluded,  however,  that  even 
to  remain  in  a  Federal  republic  containing  a  Texas 
largely  surrendered  to  slavery  was  better  than  to  incur 
the  hazards  of  "a  dissolution  of  the  Union"  and  in 
1848  gave  her  vote  for  President  Zachary  Taylor 
who  was  a  slave-holder  as  well  as  a  military  hero. 

Writing  of  these  interesting  resolutions  in  1866, 
George  Lunt,2  who  had  formerly  been  United  States 
District  Attorney  for  Massachusetts,  receiving  ap 
pointment  through  Daniel  Webster,  remarks  that  "  the 
idea  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,7'  as  a  consequence 
of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  i  i  was  contemplated  by  the 
legislative  assembly  of  Massachusetts,  and  was  held 
out  by  it  as  a  menace  to  the  general  government  to 
prevent  the  consummation  of  the  project."  He  says 
further  that  "it  affords  perhaps  one  of  the  most  em 
phatic  examples  possible  of  the  assertion  of  State 
rights. '  >  The  principle  proclaimed  was  unquestionably 

1  Acts  and  Resolves  of  Massachusetts,  Ch.  131,  pp.  651-653. 
3  The  Origin  of  the  Late  War,  pp.  147-150. 


54  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

the  same  as  that  on  which  the  Southern  States  based 
their  action  in  1860-1,  fifteen  years  later.  "It  is 
quite  evident, "  admits  Lunt,  "  that  they  [the  Massa 
chusetts  resolutions  referred  to]  enunciated  the  assertion 
of  the  right  of  nullification  and  secession  j  and  that, 
if  followed  out  to  their  legitimate  results,  they  could 
have  received  their  practical  application  only  on  the 
'  peaceably  if  we  can,  forcibly  if  we  must '  doctrine 
of  a  former  representative  of  the  State  in  Congress."  1 

Of  the  long  struggle  over  the  slavery  question,  it 
may  be  justly  said  that  the  Nortlywas  morally  right  as 
to  the  general  principle  upheld, 'while  the  South  was 
legally  and  constitutionally  rightV- persuading  itself, 
moreover,  that  it  was  morally  riglit  as  well,  and  find 
ing  at  last  abundant  cause  for  accusing  the  North  of 
broken  faith.  The  Abolitionists  who  openly  repudi 
ated  the  Constitution  of  their  country  and  scorned 
compromise  were  more  consistent  and  more  honest 
than  those  Northern  politicians  who  secretly  aimed  at 
the  same  results  while  still  professing  allegiance  to  a 
slavery -protecting  Constitution. 

In  the  earlier  times  the  South  itself — even  more 
than  the  North  of  the  same  period,  apparently — was 
troubled  with  misgivings  as  to  the  desirability  and 
morality  of  the  slavery  institution.  Hinton  Eowan 
Helper,  of  North  Carolina,  Cassius  M.  Clay,  of  Ken 
tucky,  and  Moncure  D.  Conway,  of  Virginia,  were  not 
the  first  Southern  men  who  earnestly  desired  the  abo- 

1  The  reference  is  to  Josiah  Quincy's  declaration  in  Congress 
in  1811  that  the  admission  of  Louisiana  as  a  State  would  be 
tantamount  to  " a  dissolution  of  the  Union,"  freeing  the  States 
from  their  obligations ;  and  that  in  such  an  event,  "  as  it  will  be 
the  right  of  all,  so  it  will  be  the  duty  of  some,  definitely  to  pre 
pare  for  separation,  amicably  if  they  can,  violently  if  they  must." 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGBESS  55 

lition  of  slavery.  There  was  strong  protest  from  the 
outset,  not  only  from  individuals  but  from  State  au 
thorities.  Oglethorpe  regarded  slavery  as  "  a  horrid 
crime,"  and  the  institution  was  prohibited  in  Georgia 
from  1735  until  1749.  In  1760  South  Carolina  passed 
an  act  prohibiting  the  further  importation  of  negro 
slaves,  but  it  was  rejected  by  the  British  crown,  the  gov 
ernor  of  the  colony  was  reprimanded,  and  the  governors 
of  all  the  colonies  were  warned  not  to  countenance 
such  legislation.  In  1770  the  British  king  refused  to 
take  notice  of  the  petition  of  the  Virginia  Assembly 
which  earnestly  objected  to  the  importation  of  slaves 
as  "a  trade  of  great  inhumanity  and  dangerous  to  the 
very  existence  of  His  Majesty's  American  dominions." 
In  1713  a  question  arose  in  the  English  Council  as  to 
what  was  the  true  legal  character  of  the  negroes 
which  British  slave  traders  were  transporting  to  Amer 
ican  shores  with  so  much  profit,  and  this  question  was 
submitted  by  the  Crown  Council  to  the  twelve  judges 
of  England  whose  answer  was:  "We  do  humbly 
certify  our  opinion  that  negroes  are  merchandise."  ' 
It  was  useless  for  any  American  colony  or  individual 
to  attempt  to  stop  or  check  a  trade  that  was  not  only 
immensely  profitable  but  legal.  After  the  independ 
ence  of  the  colonies  was  achieved  and  the  Union  was 
formed,  the  choice  was  left  with  the  Americans  them 
selves,  but  now  slave  labor  was  depended  on  in  the 


1  In  his  speech  in  the  United  States  Senate  on  March  11,  1858, 
Judah  P.  Benjamin  cited  this  interesting  fact  in  order  to  show  that 
negro  slavery  was  the  common  law  of  the  thirteen  Colonies  at  the 
time  they  became  independent  and  before  the  Constitution  recog 
nized  the  institution,  and  was  not,  therefore,  the  mere  "  creature  of 
the 'statute  law  of  the  several  States  where  it  is  established  [in 
1858],"  as  had  been  recklessly  asserted. 


56  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

South  and  New  England  ship  owners  were  still  making 
fortunes  out  of  the  traffic  in  negroes.  As  late  as  1770 
Ehode  Island  alone  had  150  vessels  in  the  trade.1 
"The  evils  of  slavery,"  pointedly  observed  Governor 
Wilson,  of  South  Carolina,  in  his  message  of  Decem 
ber  1,  1824,  "  have  been  visited  upon  us  by  the 
cupidity  of  those  who  are  now  the  champions  of  uni 
versal  emancipation."  2  Even  if  general  agreement 
had  been  possible  the  problem  of  the  disposal  of  the 
vast  number  of  liberated  slaves  would  still  have  called 
for  solution. 

The  outlook  was  not  encouraging,  yet  abolition  seems 
to  have  been  desired  by  nearly  all  the  leading  Southern 
statesmen.  Washington,  although  a  slaveholder  until 
his  death,  wrote  to  Eobert  Morris,  in  1786,  that 
"there  is  not  a  man  living  who  wishes  more  sincerely 
than  I  do  to  see  some  plan  adopted  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery."  Henry  Laurens  said  he  "abhorred"  the 
system.  George  Mason  described  it  as  "an  infernal 
traffic"  which  had  originated  "in  the  avarice  of 
British  merchants."  Patrick  Henry  said  it  was  as 
"repugnant  to  humanity"  as  it  was  "inconsistent 
with  the  Bible  and  destructive  of  liberty,"  and  he  de 
plored  its  ' i  fatal  effects. ' ?  Madison  noted  that  i  i  where 
slavery  exists  the  Eepublican  theory  becomes  still 
more  fallacious."  3  Monroe  declared  that  the  "evil" 
of  slavery  had  been  "prejudicial  to  all  the  States  in 
which  it  has  existed. ' '  John  Eandolph,  of  Eoanoke,  in 
his  will  gave  his  slaves  i  i  their  freedom  to  which  my 
conscience  tells  me  they  are  justly  entitled."  *  Gov- 

1  John  R.  Spears,  The  American  Slave  Trade,  p.  19. 
'Niles's  Register,  XXVII,  pp.  263,  264. 

3  The  Federalist,  No.  39. 

4  Hinton  R.  Helper,  The  Impending  Crisis,   p.  97. 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGRESS  57 

ernor  Thomas  M.  Randolph,  Peyton  Randolph  and  Ed 
mund  Randolph,  all  spoke  against  the  institution. 
The  Virginia  Society  for  the  Abolition  of  Slavery,  or 
ganized  in  1791,  declared  the  system  to  be  an  "  outra 
geous  violation  of  one  of  the  most  essential  rights  of 
human  nature  and  utterly  repugnant  to  the  precepts  of 
the  Gospel. "  In  1832  Governor  McDowell,  of  Vir 
ginia,  described  slavery  as  "  a  curse  as  great  upon 
him  who  inflicts  it  as  upon  him  who  suffers  it."  In 
the  same  year  the  Richmond  Enquirer  solemnly  de 
clared  :  "God  only  knows  what  is  the  part  of  wise 
men  to  do  on  this  appalling  subject.  The  disease 
is  deep-seated  ;  it  is  at  the  heart's  core  ;  it  is  consum 
ing  our  vitals.  What  is  to  be  done  I  O  God  !  we  do 
not  know;  but  something  must  be  done."  This  was 
during  the  profound  agitation  which  resulted  in  a  bill 
for  the  gradual  emancipation  of  all  the  slaves  in  Vir 
ginia.  The  members  of  the  legislature  "tied"  on 
this  measure,  and  the  chairman,  though  he  favored  it, 
cast  his  deciding  vote  against  it  solely  on  the  ground 
that  a  bill  of  such  great  importance  should  not  pass 
unless  supported  by  a  clear  majority.  Benjamin 
Lundy's  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation,  published 
in  Baltimore  at  the  time,  is  cited  as  authority  for  the 
statement  that  in  1827  there  were  one  hundred  and  six 
anti-slavery  societies  in  the  Southern  and  twenty-four 
in  the  Northern  States,  and  Birney's  Life  of  Birney&s 
authority  for  the  statement  that  two  thousand  slaves 
were  set  free  in  North  Carolina  in  1824-6.  But  all  the 
Southern  anti-slavery  societies  had  disappeared  by  1839 
as  a  result  of  the  sectional  alignment  on  the  question, 
the  aggressive  activities  of  the  Northern  Abolitionists 
and  such  related  events  as  the  Nat  Turner  slave  in- 


58  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

surrection  of  1832  with  its  massacre  of  sixty-one 
innocent  women  and  children  at  Southampton,  Va. 
Writing  in  1836,  the  visiting  English  authoress,  Harriet 
Martineau,  said :  ' i  Among  the  many  hundreds  of 
persons  in  the  slave  States,  with  whom  I  conversed  on 
the  subject  of  slavery,  I  met  with  only  one  who  defended 
the  institution  altogether.  All  the  rest  who  vindicated 
its  existence,  did  so  on  the  ground  of  the  impossibility 
of  doing  it  away." 

And  what  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  had  announced 
the  theory,  so  inconsistent  with  the  institution  of 
slavery,  that  all  men  are  endowed  from  birth  with  the 
inalienable  right  of  individual  liberty  f  As  far  back 
as  1774  he  said  before  the  Virginia  convention  of  that 
year  :  "The  abolition  of  slavery  is  the  greatest  object 
of  desire  in  these  colonies,  where  it  was  unhappily 
introduced  in  their  infant  state)7 '  The  South  of 
Calhoun,  Davis,  Toombs,  and  Stephens  could  not  ap 
peal  in  behalf  of  the  justice  of  slavery  to  the  early 
patriots  of  Virginia,  the  Carolinas  or  Georgia.  At  a 
later  time  Jefferson  urged  the  adoption  of  some  scheme 
of  deportation,  as  did  Henry  Clay,  but  could  see  no 
immediate  solution  of  the  problem,  although  with 
clear  vision  and  gloomy  forebodings  he  apprehended 
the  coming  of  the  disastrous  sectional  division  on  the 
subject.  "  There  is  not  a  man  on  earth, "  he  declared, 
"  who  would  sacrifice  more  than  I  would  to  relieve  us 
from  this  heavy  reproach,  in  any  practicable  way. 
The  cession  of  that  kind  of  property,  for  so  it  is  mis 
named,  is  a  bagatelle  which  would  not  cost  me  a 
second  thought,  if  in  that  way  a  general  emancipation 
and  expatriation  could  be  effected  ;  and  gradually  and 
with  due  sacrifices  I  think  it  might  be.  But  as  it  is, 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGRESS  59 

we  have  the  wolf  by  the  ears  and  can  neither  hold  him 
nor  safely  let  him  go.  Justice  is  in  one  scale  and 
self-preservation  in  the  other."  l  Yet  he  took  the 
State  rights  position  that  Congress  had  no  authority  to 
limit  the  area  of  slavery,  this  being  "  the  exclusive 
right  of  every  State." 

By  1820  the  dreaded  sectional  alignment  had  come. 
The  great  State  of  New  York  had  abolished  slavery  in 
1817,  although  the  act  was  not  made  operative  until 
1827.  The  North  had  let  the  "  wolf"  go,  but  it  was 
then  only  a  little  wolf 2  and  excited  no  fear  ;  the  South, 
with  the  bulk  of  the  blacks  within  its  borders,  had 
the  great  wolf  by  the  ears,  and,  believing  with 
Jefferson  that  it  could  not  "  safely  let  him  go,"  took 
measures  to  hold  him  fast.  The  development  of  a 
great  and  profitable  industry  by  means  of  slave  labor 
and  the  cotton  gin  also  exerted  an  inevitable  influence 
on  the  public  mind  in  the  States  producing  that  staple. 

1  Jefferson's  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VII,  p.  159. 

2  The  size  of  the  "  wolf  "  in  the  North  appears  to  have  been  con 
siderable  forty  years  earlier,    at  the  time  the  Constitution  was 
framed  and  made  to  provide  representation  in  Congress  based  on 
three-fifths  of  the  slave  population — an  arrangement  proposed  by 
James  Wilson,  of  Pennsylvania,  voted  for  by  all  the  States  except 
New  Jersey  and  Delaware  (Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  I,  pp.  168-169), 
and  approved  by  Hamilton  in   The  Federalist,  No.  54,  where  he 
says,  ' '  The  Federal  Constitution  decides  with  great  propriety  on  the 
case  of  our  slaves  when  it  views  them  in  the  mixed  character  of 
persons  and  property, ' ' — persons  to  be  protected  in  life  and  limb  and 
property  to  be  bought  and  sold.     "This,"  he  adds,  "is,  in  fact, 
their  true  character."    That  the  "wolf  "  was  much  greater  in  the 
North  of  1787  appears  from  the  mention  in  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  I, 
p.  194,  of  an  estimate  submitted  by  General  Bloomfield  giving  New 
Hampshire  102,000  slaves,  New  Jersey  145,000,  and  Virginia  300,000. 
A  later  estimate  published  in  Niles's  Register  in  1811  (Vol.  I,    pp. 
264-5),  gives  New  Hampshire  in  1790  only  158  slaves,  New  Jersey 
11,423,  New  York  21,324,  and  Georgia  29,264.     Apparently  a  single 
generation  witnessed  the  transfer  of  the  bulk  of  the  Northern  slaves 
to  Southern  soil  whereon  they  could  be  more  profitably  employed. 


60  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

While  Northern  opinion,  now  finally  set  free,  con 
tinually  advanced  toward  opposition  to  slavery  on 
American  soil,  dominant  Southern  opinion  moved 
steadily  away  from  the  abolition  sentiment  of  Jefferson, 
Madison,  Monroe,  the  Eandolphs,  and  the  early 
Southern  anti-slavery  societies.  Southern  statesmen 
became  apologists  and  then  advocates.  Bishops  and 
churchmen  discovered  that  slavery  was  an  institution 
of  Divine  origin,  pointing  out  that  the  people  of  Israel 
had  received  laws  for  its  regulation  through  Moses, 
apparently  not  observing  that  polygamy  was  similarly 
sanctioned  by  the  ancient  customs  of  the  same  people. 
Legislation  naturally  followed  in  some  of  the  States, 
providing  for  a  stronger  hold  on  the  wolf  that  could 
not  be  safely  let  go.  He  might  be  trained  in  all  the 
mechanic  arts  and  be  taught  the  Christian  religion, 
but  he  must  not  learn  to  read  lest  he  know  too  much 
and  tend  to  develop  a  restive  and  alarming  discontent. 
Yet  the  negro's  situation,  all  things  considered,  was 
on  the  whole  less  hard  than  this  would  seem  to  imply  ; 
for  the  mechanic  arts,  the  Christian  religion,  and  as 
sociation  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  had  been  slowly 
transforming  savages  into  civilized  men.  He  was 
better  off  than  his  grandfather  had  been  in  Africa,  for 
in  most  cases  the  latter  had  been  the  victim  of  a  system 
of  hereditary  slavery  reaching  back  to  remote  an 
tiquity.  Mungo  Park,  who  in  1795-7  journeyed  a 
thousand  miles  inland  from  the  western  coast, 
testified  that  " throughout  Africa"  the  " slaves  are 
nearly  in  the  proportion  of  three  to  one  to  the  free 
men"  ;  that  the  negroes  "  purchased  by  Europeans 
on  the  coast  are  chiefly  of  this  [enslaved]  description  "  ; 
that  there  were  slaves  of  two  kinds,  those  born  of  slave 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGBESS  61 

mothers  and  those  captured  in  war,  and  that  the  former 
were  "by  far  the  most  numerous, "  for  even  the 
captives  taken  in  war  "are  generally"  slaves  ;  and, 
finally,  that  "  the  slatees  who  purchase  slaves  in  the 
interior  countries  and  carry  them  down  to  the  coast 
for  sale  constantly  prefer  such  as  have  been  in  that 
condition  of  life  from  their  infancy,  well  knowing 
that  these  have  been  accustomed  to  hunger  and  fa 
tigue,  and  are  better  able  to  sustain  hardships  than 
freemen  ;  neither  are  they  so  apt  to  attempt  making 
their  escape.'7  '  Sir  Samuel  Baker,  also,  in  his  narra 
tive  of  an  expedition  to  Central  Africa,  says:  "In 
every  African  tribe  that  I  have  visited  I  found  slavery 
a  natural  institution  of  the  country."  3 

Testimony  of  reputable  witnesses,  showing  that  the 
new  form  of  slavery  endured  by  the  negroes  in  the 
Southern  States  was  on  the  whole  as  humane  as  is 
possible  under  such  a  system  anywhere,  might  also 
be  adduced,  but  is  unnecessary.  It  is  worth  while, 
however,  to  suggest  that  Southern  negro  slaves  of  the 
second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  in 
some  respects  less  to  be  pitied  than  Northern  negro 
freemen  of  the  same  period.  In  our  own  times  it  has 
been  remarked  that  the  general  attitude  toward  the 
individual  negro's  shortcomings  is  more  tolerant  and 
patient  in  the  South  than  in  the  North,  and  this  has 
been  reasonably  attributed  to  the  results  of  long  associa 
tion.  A  similar  difference  of  attitude  in  the  slave 
and  the  free  States  was  noted  early  in  the  last  century. 
De  Tocqueville,  writing  in  1835  from  the  unbiased 

1  Mungo  Park,  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  Africa,  Vol.  I,  p.  27  ;  Vol. 
II,  Chap.  22,  pp.  98-102  (CasselPs  National  Library  edition). 

2  Sir  Samuel  W.  Baker,  Ismailia,  p.  340. 


62  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

standpoint  of  a  foreigner,  says:  " Whoever  has  in 
habited  the  United  States  must  have  perceived  that 
in  those  parts  of  the  Union  in  which  the  negroes  are 
no  longer  slaves  they  have  in  nowise  drawn  nearer  the 
whites.  On  the  contrary,  the  prejudice  of  race  ap 
pears  to  be  stronger  in  the  States  which  have  abolished 
slavery  than  in  those  where  it  still  exists  ;  and  no 
where  is  it  so  intolerant  as  in  those  States  where 
servitude  has  never  been  known.'7  The  astute  French 
observer  notes  that,  though  intermarriage  was  lawful 
in  the  free  States,  "public  opinion  would  stigmatize 
as  infamous  "  the  white  person  who  espoused  a  black  ; 
that,  though  the  electoral  franchise  had  been  con 
ferred  on  the  negroes  in  almost  all  the  free  States, 
"if  they  come  forward  to  vote  their  lives  are  in 
danger  "  ;  that,  though  negroes  might  serve  as  jurors, 
11  prejudice  repels  them  from  that  office"  j  that  there 
were  separate  schools,  separate  hospital  wards, 
separate  galleries  in  theatres  ;  and  that  thus  the  free 
negro  of  the  North  l '  can  share  neither  the  rights,  nor 
the  pleasures,  nor  the  labor  ...  of  him 
whose  equal  he  has  been  declared  to  be."  In  the 
South  of  1835,  on  the  other  hand,  "the  negroes  are 
less  carefully  kept  apart"  ;  and  "although legislation 
treats  them  more  harshly,  the  habits  of  the  people 
are  more  tolerant  and  compassionate."  '  Seeking  to 
explain  why  "the  prejudice  which  repels  the  negroes 
seems  to  increase  in  proportion  as  they  are  eman 
cipated,"  and  why  "inequality  is  sanctioned  by  the 
manners  whilst  it  is  effaced  from  the  laws,"  De 
Tocqueville  reaches  the  conclusion  that  slavery  was 

1  Alexis  De  Tocqueville,  Democracy  in  America  (Bowen  trans 
lation)  Vol.  I,  pp.  460-62. 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGBESS  63 

abolished  in  the  States  of  the  North  "  not  for  the  good 
of  the  negroes  but  for  that  of  the  whites."  That  this 
was  true  on  the  commercial  side  the  South  has  always 
charged.  De  Tocqueville's  conclusion  was  doubtless 
sufficiently  just  in  the  year  1835,  the  growth  of  moral 
conviction  and  outspoken  aversion  to  traffic  in  human 
creatures  being  more  evident  at  a  later  period. 
/When  Stephens  began  his  career  in  Congress  the 
sectional  alignment  on  the  slavery  question  was  com 
plete  ;  North  and  South,  free  labor  and  slave  labor, 
were  avowedly  and  unalterably  opposed.  It  was 
inevitable  that  the  prevailing  Southern  view  should 
be  Stephens' s  view,  as  it  was  that  of  virtually  every 
other  Southern  Whig  of  prominence.  Yet  his  in 
stinctive  impulses  were  democratic  in  the  fullest 
sense,  and  had  he  lived  within  another  environment, 
he  would  have  been  found  on  the  side  of  free  labor. 
He  reveals  this  instinctive  impulse  in  his  speech  on 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  even  while  he  justifies  the 
institution  of  slavery  as  it  existed  in  the  Southern 
States."  After  frankly  acknowledging  that  the  admis 
sion  of  Texas  would  '  *  give  additional  power  to  the 
southwestern  section  in  the  national  councils,"  and 
that  he  desired  it  for  that  reason — not  because  of  the 
"  extension  of  the  i  area  of  slavery/  "  as  alleged — he 
continued  :  "I  am  no  defender  'of  slavery  in  the  ab-  / 
stract.  Liberty  always  had  charms  for  me,  and  I 
would  rejoice  to  see  all  the  sons  of 'Adam's  family,  in 
every  land  and  clime,  in  the  enjoyment  of  those  rights  * 
which  are  set  forth  in  our  Declaration  of  Independence 
as  i  natural  and  inalienable,'  if  a  stern  necessity, 
bearing  the  marks  and  impress  of  the  Creator  Him 
self,  did  not,  in  some  cases,  interpose  and  prevent. 


64  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Such  is  the  case  in  the  States  where  slavery  now 
exists.  But  I  have  no  wish  to  see  it  extended  to 
other  countries  ;  and  if  the  annexation  of  Texas  were 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  extending  slavery  where  it  does 
not  now  and  would  not  otherwise  exist,  I  should  op 
pose  it.  This  is  not  its  object,  nor  will  it  be  its  effect. 
Slavery  already  exists  in  Texas  and  will  continue  to 
exist  there.77 1  The  real  Stephens  spoke  here— the 
man  who  was  always  moved  with  sympathy  for  the 
weak  and  compassion  for  the  unfortunate.  The 
Stephens  who  in  1861  described  slavery  as  the  "  corner 
stone77  of  Southern  civilization  and  the  negro7 s 
"  natural  and  normal  condition,772  spoke  from  a 
persuasive  faith,  from  a  compelling  environment, 
and  from  the  excitement  and  partisanship*  of  a  con 
flict  which  had  at  last  demanded  the  arbitrament  of 
the  sword. 

Not  a  field  for  the  extension  of  slavery,  which  al 
ready  existed  in  Texas,  but  additional  power  for  the 
South  in  Congress,  was  Stephens7 s  chief  object  in 
urging  the  annexation  of  the  "lone  star77  republic. 
This  he  regarded  as  an  offset  to  the  material  disad 
vantage  to  his  section  which  he  apprehende^/  "The 
accession  will  be  to  the  [material]  interests  exclusively 
of  the  North  and  West,77  he  declared.  "  The  North 
will  have  an  enlarged  market  for  her  manufactures 
and  will  have  a  new  competitor  in  the  field  against  the 
South,  in  the  growth  of  the  raw  material  which  she 
now  has  to  buy.  .  .  .  The  South  will  have  noth 
ing  to  sell  the  people  of  T.exas,  but  will  feel  sorely  her 
formidable  competition  in  the  production  of  cotton 

1  Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  p.  301. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  721. 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGBESS  65 

and  sugar. "  Among  the  reasons  in  favor  of  annex 
ation,  other  than  the  one  noted,  were  these,  that  Texas 
would  provide  an  outlet  for  the  accumulating  popu 
lation  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  Texans  were 
of  the  "  Americo-  Anglo-Saxon  "  race.  "  They  are 
from  us  and  of  us,  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our 
flesh.  Our  sympathies  are  with  them  ;  they  have  an 
attachment  for  our  institutions  and  form  of  govern 
ment,  and  in  their  struggles  for  the  establishment  of 
the  same  it  is  but  natural  that  we  should  be  disposed 
to  extend  them  a  helping  hand,  though  our  interests 
may  not  be  thereby  advanced." 

/  To  the  modern  student  this  speech  is  more  interest 
ing  in  its  incidentals  than  in  its  main  argument.  For 
example,  Stephens  speaks  of  the  United  States  as  a 
"confederacy  "  and  exhibits  a  devotion  to  the  prin 
ciple  of  State  sovereignty  no  less  uncompromising  than 
that  so  emphatically  expressed  in  the  Massachusetts 
resolutions  to  which  reference  has  been  made.  He 
asserts  that  slavery  "  is  a. matter  that  exclusively  con 
cerns  the  States  in  which  it  exists,"  and  "  with  which 
the  general  government  has  no  right  to  interfere. ' '  He 
declares  that  the  main  object  of  the  Constitution  was 
"  to  form  a  union  of  States,  a  species  of  confederacy  ; 
conferring  upon  the  joint  government  of  the  confedera 
tion,  or  union,  the  exercise  of  such  sovereign  powers 
as  were  necessary  for  all  foreign  national  purposes,  and 
retaining  all  others  in  the  States,  or  the  people  of  the 
States,  respectively."  This  Constitution,  by  its  own 
provision,  was  not  established  until  formally  ratified 
by  as  many  as  nine  States.  Eleven  ratified  it,  and  thus 
it  became  alive  and  active,  while  North  Carolina  and 
Ehode  Island  long  refused  to  do  so,  and  thus  remained 


66  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

foreign  territory  (the  latter  until  1790)  in  their  rela 
tions  to  the  newly -created  Union.  Stephens  referred 
to  this  in  order  to  show  that  the  objection  that  the 
Union  could  not  receive  an  accession  of  such  foreign 
territory  as  Texas  was  absurd,  the  practice  having 
been  inaugurated  almost  from  the  outset  by  the  ad 
mission  of  the  foreign  territory  of  North  Carolina, 
Khode  Island,  and  Vermont  within  a  few  years  after 
the  Union's  formation.'  He  might  have  added  that 
North  Carolina  and  Ehode  Island,  provided  there  was 
no  resort  to  armed  coercion,  could  have  remained  inde 
pendent  to  this  day.  But  he  finds  the  case  of  Vermont 
still  more  to  the  point : 

"She  [Vermont]  was  a  separate  and  independent 
community  with  a  government  of  her  own.  She  was 
not  even  one  of  the  original  revolting  thirteen  colonies. 
She  had  never  been  united  in  the  old  Confedera 
tion.  .  .  .  She  was  a  distinct,  independent  govern 
ment  within  herself.  She  had  her  own  constitution, 
her  own  legislature,  her  own  executive,  judiciary  and 
military  establishment,  and  exercised  all  the  faculties 
of  a  sovereign  and  independent  state.  She  had  her 
own  post-office  department  and  revenue  laws  and  regu 
lations  of  trade.  The  United  States  did  not  attempt 
to  exercise  any  jurisdiction  over  her.  .  .  .  The 
gentleman  from  Vermont  says  New  York  claimed 
jurisdiction  over  her  and  finally  gave  consent  for  the 
admission  of  Vermont  as  a  State.  This  is  true.  But 
Vermont  did  not  recognize  the  jurisdiction  of  New 
York  ;  she  bade  defiance  to  it.  And  after  years  had 
rolled  on  in  this  situation,  she  treated  with  New  York, 
as  one  sovereign  treats  with  another,  and  paid  thirty 
thousand  dollars  for  a  relinquishment  of  that  jurisdic 
tion  which  she  would  not  allow  to  be  exercised,  and  was 
then  admitted  into  the  Union  as  one  of  the  States."  l 

Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  p.  295. 


STEPHENS  IN  CONGKESS  67 

On  the  day  this  speech  was  delivered  the  resolutions 
for  the  admission  of  Texas  were  carried  in  the  House 
by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  to  ninety -eight, 
and  as  soon  as  the  Senate  and  the  President  had  acted 
the  empire  recently  lost  by  Mexico,  with  its  207,504 
square  miles  of  territory,  became  a  State  of  the 
American  Union.  Stephens  and  seven  other  Southern 
Whigs  contributed  by  their  votes  to  this  important 
result,  and  for  this  act  they  were  bitterly  denounced  as 
traitors  to  their  party. 

/f  Stephens  was  also  sharply  criticized  in  the  South, 
7  with  much  bitterness  in  some  instances,  for  declaring 
in  his  annexation  speech  that  he  was  ' l  no  defender 
of  slavery  in  the  abstract,"  which  shows  how  sensitive 
the  Southern  public  had  already  become.  His  future 
as  a  Southern  statesman  was  not  jeopardized,  however, 
his  popularity  being  already  too  general  and  his 
abilities  too  widely  recognized.  The  faithful  Georgia 
Journal  (Whig)  declared  that  the  manner  in  which 
the  Democratic  newspapers  of  that  State  assailed 
Stephens  was  "  amusing  to  witness,"  being  labor  in 
vain.  The  same  newspaper  proudly  announced  that 
its  favorite  had  received  the  unanimous  nomination 
of  the  convention  of  the  seventh  district. 


CHAPTEE  IV 

HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAR 

THE  newspapers  of  the  forties  and  fifties  contained 
much  interesting  comment  on  Stephens' s  appearance 
as  a  man,  his  powers  as  an  orator  and  his  abilities 
as  a  statesman,  frequently  comparing  him  with  that 
other  unusual  product,  John  Eandolph  of  Eoanoke. 
After  his  speech  before  the  Clay  Club  of  Eichmond 
in  June,  1844,  a  local  newspaper,  The  Compiler,  re 
gretted  l  i  that  Providence,  which  bestowed  upon  him 
such  liberal  intellectual  powers,  had  not  armed  him 
with  physical  energies  more  in  keeping  with  the  ener 
gies  of  his  mind,"  and  added  :  "His  voice  is  very 
much  of  the  same  order  as  Eandolph7  s,  and  he  re 
sembles  him  much  in  the  disparity  between  the 
strength  of  his  mental  and  physical  constitution. " 
According  to  the  Eichmond  Republican,  u  in  brilliant 
and  cutting  invective"  Stephens  had  "few  equals 
among  the  public  men  of  the  day,"  and  in  this  partic 
ular  "  he  frequently  reminds  his  hearers  of  John 
Eandolph." 

The  Macon  Journal  and  Messenger  of  December  19, 
1849,  quotes  as  follows  from  the  Philadelphia  In 
quirer  : 1 

"Physically  one  of  the  most  feeble,  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  of  Georgia,  is  yet  intellectually  one  of  the 
ablest  members  *of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives. 
Short  and  slender  in  stature  with  the  face  and  head  of 

1  Daguerreotype  Sketches  of  Members  of  Congress,  by  E.  M.  J. 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAR        69 

a  young  girl  [he  was  then  nearly  thirty-eight  years 
old],  his  appearance  at  once  arrests  attention,  from  its 
contrast  with  the  more  masculine  figures  around  him. 
His  voice,  thin  and  sharp  and  shrill  as  the  l  ear-pierc 
ing  pipe/  cleaves  the  dense  atmosphere  of  the  sombre 
chamber,  startling  the  House  and  galleries  by  its 
clear,  penetrating  tones.  .-Every  eye  is  instantly 
turned  upon  the  speaker, /for  he  is  one  o£ the  few 
members  who  always  command  attention^]  *  if  he  is  in 
troducing  a  bill,  he  presents  a  lucid,  analogically  ar 
ranged  statement  of  its  character  and  object  which 
reaches  the  dullest  comprehension.  Having  thus  laid 
it  before  the  House,  he  calmly  awaits  the  assaults  of 
its  adversaries.  Should  any  misstateinent  of  his  re 
marks  be  made,  he  promptly  corrects  it  on  the  spot. 
As  the  debate  approaches  to  a  close,  he  again  takes 
the  floor,  and  passing  in  review  all  the  weightier  argu 
ments  of  his  opponents,  and  mingling  the  most  bitter 
sarcasm  with  the  strongest  invective  that  parlia 
mentary  decorum  admits  of,  he  tears  asunder  with  the 
keen  scimitar  of  his  logic  the  finest  webs  of  sophistry 
and  the  most  ponderous  mass  of  reasoning.  Seeking 
exclusively  the  success  of  his  measure,  he  avoids  mere 
declamation,  however  tempting  the  occasion,  and 
deals  only  with  the  facts  that  press  most  heavily 
against  his  case.  When  personally  assailed,  nothing 
can  exceed  the  severity  of  his  reply.  (When  aroused, 
his  tongue  becomes  a  whip  of  scorpions.  Of  all  the 
men  in  the  House,  he  is  the  last  for  a  new  member  to 
break  a  lance  with^*  With  a  better  arranged  mind 
than  John  Eandolph,  he  is  probably  more  like  him 
than  any  one  who  has  been  in  Congress  since  his 
time." 

TJie  Pennsylvanian1  of  this    year  comments  sneer  - 

ingly  on  a  recent  speech  in  the  House  into  which 

Stephens  "  exploded  "  and  which  "  breathed  sulphur 

in  every  line ; ?  J   but    the  same  newspaper  in  1854, 

1  Quoted  in  the  Georgia  Telegraph  of  March  6,  1849. 


70  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

though  criticising  his  politics,  is  forced  to  praise  the 
man.  "And  yet,"  it  says,  "this  ungainly -looking 
individual  is  considered  by  many  the  ablest  member 
of  the  House,  and  of  a  House,  too,  that  can  boast 
some  of  the  best  minds  of  the  country.  .  .  .  You 
look  in  vain  for  some  outward  manifestation  of  that 
towering,  commanding  intellect  which  has  held  the 
congregated  talent  of  the  whole  country  spellbound 
for  hours.  It  is  not  in  the  eye,  for  it  is  dull  and 
heavy.  [Having  just  left  a  bed  of  severe  illness, 
Stephens  appeared  at  this  time  to  be  more  emaciated 
than  usual.]  It  is  not  in  the  face,  for  it  is  meaning 
less.  It  is  not  in  the  voice,  for  it  is  shrill  and  sharp  ; 

still  you  feel  convinced  that  the  feeble,  tottering 
being  before  you  is  all  brain — brain  in  the  head, 
brain  in  the  arms,  brain  in  the  legs,  brain  in  the  body 
— that  the  whole  man  is  charged  and  surcharged  with 
electricity  of  intellect — that  a  touch  would  bring  forth 

divine  spark  !  " 
Another  estimate  of  unusual  interest  is  quoted  in 
Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches  from  Eev.  W.  H.  Mil- 
burn,  the  half-blind  chaplain  of  Congress,  who  de 
clared  that  in  spite  of  all  the  odds  against  a  "  victim  of 
life-long  disease,'7  Stephens  was  the  "most  powerful 
orator"  in  Washington  at  that  period. f  "How nearly 
disease  and  genius  may  be  associated,  is  a  question 
which  I  leave  for  psychologists  to  settle.  But  I  feel 
sure  that  sleepless  nights  and  days  of  pain  have  much 
to  do  with  the  brilliant  intellect  of  this  remarkable 
man."  Comparing  Stephens  with  John  Eandolph,  he 
says  :  "  Both  have  been  the  victims  of  disease  whose 
origin  dates  far  back  in  life,  and  each  has  consequently 
been  the  owner  of  a  body,  which,  however  exquisitely 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAR        71 

it  may  have  been  strung,  has  been  perilously  sensitive. 
Both  have  exercised  almost  unequal  sway  on  the 
floor  of  Congress  ;  and  both  have  been  noted  as  mas 
ters  in  the  art  of  offensive  parliamentary  warfare. 
Both  have  been  admitted  to  be  unimpeachably  honest 
and  fearless  statesmen.  But  Mr.  Eandolph  had 
scarcely  a  friend.  Mr.  Stephens  has  hardly  an  enemy.  ' 
Bodily  infirmity,  if  it  did  not  master  Mr.  Bandolph's 
will,  soured  his  temper  and  gave  to  his  perfect  diction 
the  poison  of  wormwood,  and  to  his  spirit  the  bitter 
ness  that  verged  upon  misanthropy.  Mr.  Stephens 
has  conquered  suffering  and  made  himself  strong  and 
noble  by  entering  heartily  into  the  sweet  charities  of 
life.' '  The  Virginian  is  described  as  " an  intolerant  aris 
tocrat  ' '  ;  the  Georgian  as  ' l  simple  and  genial  in  his 
manners  as  a  child.  .  .  .  Whether  Mr.  Stephens 
continues  in  the  House,  which  I  presume  he  would 
prefer  as  the  great  popular  body,  or  be  removed  to  the 
Senate,  I  think  that  the  country  will  one  day  adjudge 
him  the  finest  orator  and  ablest  statesman  in  either.'7 
On  reading  the  speeches  of  our  earlier  statesmen, 
the  modern  student  is  apt  to  wonder  a  little  at  the 
profound  effect  they  produced  and  the  enthusiastic 
praise  they  evoked.  This  feeling  of  slight  disap 
pointment  is  doubtless  due  to  the  imperfect  reporting 
as  well  as  to  the  absence  of  the  magnetic  personality 
of  the  speaker.  In  a  letter  written  in  1846  Stephens 
expresses  great  dissatisfaction  with  one  of  his  speeches 
as  printed  and  states  that  "  the  reporter's  notes"  pre 
served  the  order  of  his  utterances,  but  neither  his  lan 
guage  nor  the  structure  of  his  sentences.  Probably  a 
similar  complaint  could  have  been  made  with  equal 
justice  against  the  reporting  of  most  public  speeches 


72  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

during  the  first  half  century  of  the  American  republic. 
For  this  reason  as  well  as  others  such  contemporary 
comment  as  has  been  reproduced  above  is  of  value  in 
forming  true  estimates  of  the  public  men  of  former 
generations.  Stephens' s  great  abilities  as  a  debater 
and  powers  as  an  orator  have  been  widely  attested. 
Only  a  speaker  of  extraordinary  attainments  could 
have  so  moved  his  hearers  and  produce^  the  effect  de 
sired  in  spite  of  physical  handicaps.  -The  orator  who 
is  a  small,  sickly,  emaciated  man,  with  a  shrill  voice, 
must  triumph  over  far  greater  difficulties  than  were 
faced  by  the  physically  powerful,  handsome,  magnetic 
and  " leonine"  Toombs,  for  example.  The  latter' s 
oratory  was  "  an  engulfing  stream  of  impetuous  force, "  ' 
while  Stephens' s  was  intellectual,  philosophical,  log 
ical,  and  convincing  to  the  sober  and  reflecting  mind. 
"  There  is  nothing  about  him  but  lungs  and  brains  !  " 
exclaimed  one  of  his  hearers  during  his  campaign 
against  the  Know-Nothing  party.  " Brains'7  was  in 
deed  his  chief  asset  as  an  orator  and  political  cam 
paigner,  but  a  brave  spirit  and  an  unconquerable  will 
were  powerful  factors  in  his  success. 

There  is  indirect  evidence  in  his  letters  that 
Stephens  was  personally  popular  at  Washington  early 
in  his  Congressional  career,  and  that  he  numbered  such 
veterans  as  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Webster  and  Judge 
Story  among  his  friends,  as  well  as  the  coming  men  of 
his  own  age.  He  was  naturally  more  closely  asso 
ciated  with  the  prominent  Whigs  than  with  the  lead 
ing  Democrats  of  the  day.  "  Judge  Story  says,'7 
reads  one  of  his  letters  to  Linton  Stephens  in  1844, 
"that  the  Eepublican  party  to  which  he  was  attached 
1  StovalPs  Life  of  Toombs,  p.  184. 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAE        73 

iu  1806  and  1809  is  extinct  now.  To  tell  the  truth,  I 
had  always  thought  he  was  a  Federalist,  but  it  is  not 
so.  He  was  opposed  to  Adams,  was  a  Kepublican, 
was  a  Jeffersonian,  and  was  appointed  Judge  under 
Madison  or  Monroe  [Madison].  He  used  to  be  in 
Congress  the  only  Eepublican  from  Massachusetts  ; 
and  he  further  says  that  most  of  the  old  Federalists 
now  are  with  the  Democratic  party — that  is,  those  of 
them  who  are  alive.  But  he  says  the  Eepublican 
party  is  extinct ;  that  he  has  ceased  to  be  surprised  at 
anything  ;  and  he  laughs  and  talks  as  gaily  as  a  boy." 
Perhaps  Judge  Story  thought  the  old  Eepublican  party 
was  " extinct"  because  its  Democratic  offspring  was 
now  the  party  of  slavery — an  inevitable  result  of  the 
conditions.  An  unbiased  observer  would  probably 
have  said  that,  in  spite  of  its  accidental  pro-slavery 
attitude,  the  Democratic  party  was  in  other  respects 
true  to  its  traditions,  particularly  the  old  Jeffersonian 
theory  that  the  country  is  governed  best  that  is  gov 
erned  least,  consistently  resisting  every  effort  to  cen 
tralize  more  power  at  Washington  than  was  provided 
for  in  the  Constitution.  Stephens' s  early  dislike  of 
the  Federalists  and  his  evident  pleasure  in  finding  that 
his  elderly  friend  had  been  a  Eepublican  may  be  taken 
as  further  evidence  that  he  was  always  at  bottom  a 
"  Jeffersonian,"  although  he  did  not  join  the  Demo 
crats  until  the  virtual  collapse  of  the  Whig  party. 

Another  of  his  letters  to  Linton  Stephens  in  the 
same  year  describes  with  interesting  detail  a  "diplo 
matic  dinner"  at  Washington  given  by  Senator 
Berrien,  of  Georgia,  at  which  were  present  the  foreign 
ministers  and  many  prominent  Americans.  The 
account  suggests  to  the  modern  reader  a  somewhat 


74  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

overdone  attempt  at  elaborate  state  and  elegance,  with 
which  Stephens,  or  his  correspondent,  was  apparently 
not  then  familiar.  We  learn  that  Mrs.  Berrien,  the  only 
lady  present,  "  sat  in  the  middle  of  the  table  with  the 
French  minister  on  her  right  and  the  British  minister 
on  her  left."  And  further  :  "  The  table  was  decorated 
with  flowers,  etc.,  and  filled  with  glass,  but  nothing 
eatable  was  to  be  seen  except  some  jellies  and  straw 
berries.  Everything  was  handed  round  by  servants. 
First  soup,  then  fish,  then  beef,  then  something  else, 
I  know  not  what ;  then  sweetbreads,  then  chicken, 
then  birds,  then  beans  and  asparagus,  then  strawberries, 
then  Charlotte  de  Russe,  with  jellies,  then  ice  cream, 
then  cherries  and  apples.  A  change  of  plates  took 
place  at  each  of  these  courses.  Six  wine  glasses  were 
placed  near  each  plate,  and  in  them  we  first  had 
sherry,  immediately  after  soup,  then  Madeira,  claret, 
champagne,  brandy,  etc.,  with  hock  and  just  what 
each  wanted  at  all  times.  I  forgot  to  mention  Hender 
son,  the  late  Texas  plenipotentiary,  as  one  of  the 
company  ;  and  I  forgot  to  say  also  that  the  last  course 
was  a  snuff-box  handed  all  round.  The  candles  were 
lighted  as  dark  came  on  [the  dinner  was  on  June  11, 
1844,  and  the  hour  was  half-past  six],  and  we  left 
the  table  at  half-past  ten,  and  repaired  to  the  drawing 
room,  where  coffee  was  served  in  the  handing 
order.  The  whole  passed  off  very  well  and  nobody 
got  drunk" — a  fact  presumably  due  to  a  chivalrous 
regard  for  the  feelings  of  the  only  lady  present !  i  i  The 
whole  company  was  jovial  and  the  conversation 
spirited.  The  servants  who  handed  meats,  etc. ,  were 
called  waiters,  those  who  served  wine  were  called 
butlers.  They  were  all  colored  but  one,  a  French  cook, 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAR        75 

who  figured  largely,  and  all  wore  silk  gloves  and  had 
on  aprons."  After  describing  the  personal  appear 
ance  of  the  more  distinguished  guests,  he  concludes  : 
"  But  I  can  say  no  more  ;  and  this  I  have  said  to  you 
only  in  order  to  write  a  few  moments  before  going  to 
bed.  ...  I  don't  write  such  stuff  as  this  for  any 
body  but  yourself.'7  * 

Stephens' s  correspondence  of  the  early  months  of 
1846  contains  interesting  references  to  the  Oregon  and 
Mexican  questions.  In  regard  to  the  former  he  took 
a  conservative  attitude  in  opposition  to  the  more 
radical  policy  which  clearly  could  not  be  maintained 
without  a  war  witty  England,  for  which  the  country 
was  not  prepared.  /  He  lamented  on  February  8th  that 
uMr.  Polk  does  not  intend  to  permit  England  to 
question  our  right  to  the  whole  country  up  to  54°  40' " 
[reaching  the  southern  boundary  of  Alaska],  and  that 
u  there  is  to  be  no  compromise  in  the  matter,"  adding  : 
1 '  This  I  look  upon  as  a  position  involving  the  direct 
issue  of  war  ;  and  if  Congress  will  back  him  up  in  that 
particular,  war  is  inevitable.  I  think  that  correspond 
ence  [between  our  State  Department  and  the  British 
Foreign  Office]  will  do  more  to  humble  the  pride  of 
our  country  and  tarnish  our  glory  than  anything  that 
has  occurred  since  the  organization  of  the  government. 
For  we  shall  never  sustain  it.  England  has  rights 
in  Oregon  and  we  shall  have  to  admit  them,  and  the 
position  of  our  Chief  Magistrate  will  have  to  be 
abandoned." 

The  event  justified  this  prediction.  Four  months 
later,  on  June  llth,  he  writes  :  "  The  Oregon  question 
is,  I  think,  about  to  be  settled.  It  is  said  that  Mr. 

1  Waddell's  Life  of  Linton  Stephens,  pp.  53-5. 


76  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Pakenham  has  sent  in  to  Mr.  Polk  Her  Majesty's 
ultimatum,  which  is  a  settlement  of  boundary  on  the 
basis  of  49°,  with  the  whole  of  Vancouver  Island  to 
England  ;  the  free  navigation  of  the  Strait  of  San  Juan 
de  Fuca,  and  the  free  navigation  of  the  Columbia  for 
ten  years.  It  is  also  said  that  Mr.  Polk  will  not  make 
a  treaty  upon  these  terms  without  first  taking  the  ad 
vice  of  the  Senate.  Pity  that  he  was  not  always  as 
cautious  and  conservative.  If  he  had  been  we  might 
not  now  be  at  war  with  Mexico.'7 

That  the  war  with  Mexico  was  precipitated  without 
just  cause  Stephens  saw  clearly  from  the  beginning. 
In  his  correspondence  of  May  10,  1846,  he  declares  that 
General  Taylor  had  no  authority  to  cross  the  Nueces 
River,  and  recalls  that  in  the  resolutions  admitting 
Texas  it  was  expressly  provided  that  questions  of 
boundary  should  be  left  for  adjustment  between  this 
country  and  Mexico  ;  that  the  territory  extending  from, 
the  Nueces  to  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte  was  disputed 
between  Mexico  and  Texas,  the  latter  never  asserting 
her  jurisdiction  over  it ;  and  that,  therefore,  as  a  simple 
matter  of  justice  we  should  have  left  it  unoccupied 
until  the  right  to  it  was  settled  by  negotiation.  The 
war  undoubtedly  resulted  from  this  unnecessary  and  un 
justifiable  advance  of  United  States  troops.  It  is  no 
less  clear  that  the  precipitation  of  the  conflict  in  this 
way  was  welcomed  by  President  Polk  and  the  sup 
porters  of  his  administration,  they  being  influenced 
partly  by  the  desire  for  territorial  aggrandizement  and 
partly  by  the  need  of  distracting  attention  from  the 
humiliating  issue  of  the  Oregon  boundary  dispute. 
Their  responsibility  for  a  groundless  war  against  a  weak 
republic  is  not  lessened  by  the  fact  that  the  issue  of 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAR        77 

the  Oregon  question  need  not  have  been  humiliating  in 
itself,  had  not  their  reckless  demand  for  54°  40'  been 
made  in  a  threatening  manner  and  then  abandoned 
rather  than  provoke  war  ;  for  the  line  of  49°  insisted 
on  by  England  was  the  same  that  was  originally  pro 
posed  by  Calhoun  as  Secretary  of  State  under  the  Tyler 
administration.  ^v 

,f  Stephens' s  speech  in  the  House  on  June  16, 1846,  was  \ 
remarkably  bold,  the  armed  conflict  with  Mexico  hav-  / 
ing  actually  begun  a  month  before!  Cautious  Whigs '^ 
listened  to  it  with  alarm,  well  knowing  that  a  war  in 
which  an  early  victory  is  sure,  and  with  promising 
possibilities  in  the  way  of  gain,  has  never  in  any 
country  failed  to  be  popular  with  a  majority  of  the 
people.  Stephens  charged  that  not  only  could  armed 
strife  have  been  avoided  with  honor,  but  that  Polk's 
order  sending  Taylor's  army  into  the  disputed  terri 
tory  while  negotiations  for  the  delimitation  of  the 
boundary  still  pended  was  a  " masked  design"1  to 
bring  on  the  struggle. 

The  proofs  he  presented  are  conclusive,  but  they  can 
not  be  produced  here,  a  history  of  the  war  with  Mexico 
having  no  part  in  this  volume.  It  need  only  be  said 
that  after  the  annexation  of  Texas  General  Taylor  with 
a  large  force  was  ordered  to  the  new  State,  although 
the  possibility  of  a  hostile  attitude  on  the  part  of 
Mexico  was  extremely  remote  in  view  of  the  impover 
ished  and  distracted  condition  of  that  republic,  and  the 
inconceivable  madness  of  attacking  the  whole  United 
States  after  failing  to  subdue  the  single  revolting 
province  of  Texas.  During  six  months  after  his  ar 
rival  General  Taylor  reported  no  signs  of  any  disquiet- 
1  Speech  on  the  Mexican  War,  Cleveland,  p.  310. 


78  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

ing  preparations  or  movements  beyond  the  Eio  Grande, 
yet  on  January  13,  1846,  he  was  directed  from  Wash 
ington  to  advance  his  army  to  Matamoras  across  150 
miles  of  disputed  territory.  General  Pedro  D'Am- 
pudia,  hastening  toward  the  same  point  with  200 
cavalry,  sent  General  Taylor  a  dispatch  ordering  him 
to  retire  from  the  soil  of  the  Department  of  Tamaulipas, 
the  message,  which  was  expressed  with  great  dignity 
and  breathed  a  sense  of  outrage,  ending  with  the  ex 
clamation  :  "God  and  liberty!"  Taylor  held  his 
ground  and  war  followed.  The  treaty  of  Guadaloupe, 
February  2,  1848,  fixed  the  Eio  Grande  as  the  boundary 
line,  and  in  addition  gave  the  United  States  the  vast 
territory  included  in  California,  New  Mexico,  Arizona, 
Nevada,  Utah  and  the  western  part  of  Colorado. 
These  rich  fruits  of  conquest  were  not  even  thinly 
disguised  by  the  payment  of  the  trivial  sum  of 
$15,000,000  by  the  Washington  government.  At 
the  time  few  Americans  could  realize  the  great  wrong 
done  Mexico,  but  to-day  the  impartial  historian  is 
forced  to  take  virtually  the  same  position  which 
Stephens  boldly  assumed  in  1846  in  the  face  of  popular 
clamor  and  in  the  midst  of  war. 

He  not  only  showed  the  injustice  of  the  war  itself, 
but  attacked  President  Polk  in  person  for  precipitating 
it  u  without  authority  from  Congress."  He  spoke  as 
a  genuine,  an  alarmed  and  a  bold  democrat  when  he 
said  :  "I  hope  never  to  see  the  day  when  the  Executive 
of  this  country  shall  be  considered  identical  with  the 
country  itself  in  its  foreign  relations,  or  when  any  man, 
for  scanning  his  acts,  however  severely  when  justly, 
shall  on  that  account  be  charged  with  opposition  to  his 
country.  Such  is  the  case  only  where  allegiance  is  due 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAE        79 

to  a  crown,  where  the  people's  rulers  are  their  mas- 
ters  ;  but,  thank  God,  in  this  country  we  can  yet  hold 
our  rulers  to  account.  How  long  we  shall  be  per 
mitted  or  disposed  to  do  so  I  know  not ;  but  whenever 
we  cease  to  do  it  we  shall  become  unfit  to  be  free." 

In  answer  to  the  charge  that  he  and  his  party  were 
opposed  not  only  to  continuing  the  war  but  to  voting 
supplies,  Stephens  declared  that  he  was  not  opposed 
to  its  active  prosecution  to  a  speedy  and  honorable 
end,  merely  to  the  way  it  was  brought  about  and 
what  he  feared  was  its  real  object.  He  demanded  to 
know  if  it  was  for  conquest.  "If  so,77  he  said,  "I 
protest  against  that  part  of  it.  I  would  shed  no  un 
necessary  blood  ;  commit  no  unnecessary  violence  j 
allow  no  outrage  upon  the  religion  of  Mexico  j  have 
no  desecration  of  temples,  or  i  reveling  in  the  halls  of 
the  Montezumas '  ;  but  be  ready  to  meet  the  first  offers 
of  peace.  I  regret  that  General  Taylor  did  not  have 
the  authority  to  accept  the  proffered  armistice.  In  a 
word,  I  am  for  a  restoration  of  peace  at  the  earliest 
day  it  can  be  honorably  effected.77  And  further  : 

"I  am  no  enemy  to  the  extension  of  our  domain,  or  , 
the  enlargement  of  the  boundaries  of  the  republic.  I 
trust  the  day  is  coming,  and  not  far  distant,  when  the 
whole  continent  will  be  ours ;  when  our  institutions 
shall  be  diffused  and  cherished,  and  republican  gov 
ernment  enjoyed,  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  this  land— from  the  far  south  to  the  extreme  north, 
from  ocean  to  ocean.  That  this  is  our  ultimate  destiny, 
if  wise  counsels  prevail,- 1  Confidently  believe.  But  it 
is  not  to  be  accomplished  by  the  sword.  Mr.  Chairman,  f 
republics  never  spread  by  arms.  We  can  properly 
enlarge  only  by  voluntary  accessions,  and  should  at 
tempt  to  act  on  our  neighbors  only  by  setting  them  a 


80  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

good  example.  This  has  been  the  history  of  our  silent 
but  rapid  progress  thus  far.  In  this  way  Louisiana, 
with  its  immense  domain  was  acquired.  In  this  way 
the  Mori  das  were  obtained.  In  this  way  we  got 
Oregon,  connecting  us  with  the  Pacific.  In  this  way 
Texas  up  to  the  Eio  Grande  might  have  been  added ; 
and  in  this  way  the  Californias  and  Mexico  herself  may 
in  due  time  be  merged  in  one  great  republic. 

"  There  is  much  said  in  this  country  of  the  party  of 
progress.  I  profess  to  be  of  that  party  ;  but  I  am  far 
from  advocating  that  kind  of  progress  which  many  of 
those  who  seem  anxious  to  appropriate  the  term  ex 
clusively  to  themselves  are  using  their  utmost  exertions 
to  push  forward.  Theirs,  in  my  opinion,  is  a  down 
ward  progress.  It  is  a  progress  of  party,  of  excite 
ment,  of  lust  of  power ;  a  spirit  of  war,  aggression, 
violence  and  licentiousness.  It  is  a  progress  which,  if 
indulged  in,  would  soon  sweep  over  all  law,  all  order, 
and  the  Constitution  itself.  ...  It  is  to  progress 
in  these  essential  attributes  of  national  greatness  that  I 
would  look :  the  improvement  of  mind,  the  *  increase 
and  diffusion  of  knowledge  among  men, ?  the  erection  of 
schools,  colleges  and  temples  of  learning ;  the  progress  of 
intellect  over  matter  ;  the  triumph  of  mind  over  the  ani 
mal  propensities  ;  the  advancement  of  kind  feeling  and 
good  will  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  ;  the  cultiva 
tion  of  virtue  and  the  pursuits  of  industry  ;  the  bring 
ing  into  subjection  and  subservience  to  the  use  of  man 
of  all  the  elements  of  nature  around  us ;  in  a  word,  the 
progress  of  civilization  and  everything  that  elevates 
and  ennobles  man.  This,  Mr.  Chairman,  is  not  to  be 
done  by  wars,  whether  foreign  or  domestic.  Fields  of 
blood  and  carnage  may  make  men  brave  and  heroic, 
but  seldom  tend  to  make  nations  either  virtuous  or 
great.'7 

J~" 
[n  his  speech  on  the  Mexican  Appropriation  Bill, 
ivered  in  the  House  on  February  12,  1847,  Stephens 
returned  more  boldly  than  ever  to  the  attack  upon  the 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAE        81 

Polk  administration  and  its  war  of  conquest,  which  he  \ 
described  as  an  u unnecessary  and  expensive7'  one, 
into  which  the  country  had  been  plunged  "  by  the  sole 
and  unauthorized  act  of  the  President."  He  declared 
that  "to  suppress  inquiry,  and  silence  all  opposition 
to  conduct  so  monstrous,  an  Executive  ukase  has  been 
sent  forth,  strongly  intimating  if  not  clearly  threaten 
ing  the  charge  of  treason  against  all  who  may  dare  to 
call  in  question  the  wisdom  or  propriety  of  his  meas 
ures."  Not  only  was  Congress,  which  "  possesses  ex 
clusively  "  the  war-making  power,  "  never  consulted  ^ 
until  after  hostilities  were  commenced,"  but  "the 
right  is  even  now  denied  that  body  to  make  any  legis 
lative  expression  of  the  national  will"  as  to  the  object 
in  view  in  such  a  war.  l  i  The  strange  and  new  doctrine 
is  now  put  forth  that  Congress  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  conduct  of  the  war  ;  that  the  President  is  entitled 
to  its  uncontrolled  management ;  that  we  can  do  noth 
ing  but  vote  men  and  money  to  whatever  amount  and 
extent  his  folly  and  caprice  may  dictate.  .  .  . 
This  is  nothing  less  than  the  assumption  that  patri 
otism  consists  in  pliant  subserviency  to  Executive  will 
— that  the  President  is  supreme,  and  *  the  King  can  do 
no  wrong. '  '^r 

Stephens  avowed  his  readiness  to  vote  the  necessary 
funds,  as  the  American  forces  could  not  now  be  with 
drawn,  but  he  refused  to  be  silent.     i '  The  President 
may  repeat  as  often  as  he  pleases,  that  ^the  war  was 
*  unavoidably  forced  on  us,'  but  such  repetition  caji 
never  change  the  facts.    It  is  a  war  of  his  own  making,  \ 
and  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  country. ) 
And  so  history,  I  doubt  not,  will  make  up  the  record/ 
if  truth   be  fairly  and  faithfully  registered  in  her 


82  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

chronicles."  Stephens  then  presented  evidence  indi 
cating  that  vast  acquisitions  of  territory  were  intended 
from  the  outset,  pointing  to  Mr.  Folk's  orders  to 
American  naval  officers  in  the  Pacific  as  far  back  as 
1845,  and  citing  a  letter  of  Secretary  of  War  Marcy, 
dated  June  26,  1846,  which  stated  the  President's  in 
tention  to  send  a  regiment  around  Cape  Horn  to  attack 
California,  and  gave  instructions  that  the  said  regi 
ment,  which  Colonel  John  D.  Stevenson  was  to  or 
ganize,  should  be  composed  of  persons  "  likely  to  re 
main,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  either  in  Oregon,  or  in 
any  other  territory  which  may  then  be  a  part  of  the 
United  States."  In  the  same  month,  June,  1846,  as 
later  appeared,  General  Kearny  with  1,600  men  was 
sent  across  the  country  from  Fort  Leavenworth  with 
orders  to  plant  the  American  standard  in  California. 

It  was  a  war  "with  a  view  to  conquest,"  undoubt 
edly,  and  the  dismemberment  of  the  United  States  of 
Mexico  had  already  begun.  But  would  the  American 
people  endorse  such  a  war  and  such  results,  after  sober 
second  thought  ?  Stephens  seemed  to  believe  that  they 
would  not,  for  he  exclaimed  :  "Do  they  suppose  that 
the  people  of  this  country  hold  in  such  slight  remem 
brance  the  principles  upon  which  their  government  is 
founded,  as  to  be  prepared  to  sustain  a  war  waged  for 
an  object  no  higher  than  that  which  springs  from  an 
unholy  lust  of  dominion  and  the  spread  of  empire  ? 
Do  they  suppose  that  this  country,  which  has  not  yet 
arrived  at  the  full  vigor  of  manhood,  has  so  soon  for 
gotten  the  lessons  of  its  early  instruction,  as  to  be 
ready  to  enter  upon  that  wild  career  of  military 
prowess  which  has  been  the  bane  of  so  many  nations 
before  us,  and  has  been  the  destruction  of  all  former 


HE  OPPOSES  THE  MEXICAN  WAR        83 

republics  ?     .     .     .     I  beg  to  protest,  not  only  for  my 
self,  but  for  the  country  also.'7  l 

This  shows  that  Stephens  understood  the  principles 
on  which  our  government  was  founded  better  than  he 
understood  the  American  people.  The  latter  clearly 
wanted  the  war  for  the  sake  of  its  fruits.  Certain, 
writers  seek  to  put  the  responsibility  for  the  deliberate! 
aggression  upon  the  "  slave  power, "  but  the  "  slave  1 
power"  was  never  so  strong  as  this  view  would  imply.  » 
Granting  that  many  Southern  leaders  did  wish  to  ex 
tend  "the  area  of  slavery,"  it  remains  to  be  said  that 
the  war  with  Mexico  could  not  have  been  forced  and 
carried  to  its  conclusion  without  the  enthusiastic  sup 
port  of  the  great  majority  of  the  people  throughout  the 
country.  The  question  of  slavery  was  a  subordinate  \ 
one.  (The  simple  fact  is  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  wished  to  extend  their  dominions  and  possess 
the  Pacific  slope.)  In  1846-8  they  were  fascinated  by 
the  vision  of  conquest,  just  as  their  sons  were  when  the 
Philippines  were  wrested  from  Spain  fifty  years  after 
ward.  The  love  of  conquest  is  bred  in  the  bone  of  the 
ADglo-Saxon  race,  and  the  Americans  themselves  have 
ever  been  a  conquering  people.  They  were  engaged 
for  more  than  two  centuries  in  driving  the  Indians  out 
of  the  land  j  they  fought  for  and  won  their  freedom 
from  British  interference;  they  would  have  fought 
France  and  Spain,  as  soon  as  they  were  able,  for  the 
possession  of  Louisiana  and  Florida,  had  not  those 
two  countries  been  wise  enough  to  sell  in  good  time ; 
they  would  have  carried  the  Oregon  boundary  to 
Alaska  by  force  and  with  shouts  of  enthusiasm  had 
not  the  cost  in  blood  and  treasure  been  too  great ;  a 
1  Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  pp.  320-334. 


84  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

few  Americans  wrested  Texas  from  the  feeble  mother 
country  and  the  American  people  as  a  whole  con 
quered  an  empire  from  Mexico  ;  in  the  war  of  1861-5, 
one-third  of  the  Union,  which  rashly  aspired  to  an 
independent  existence,  was  subjugated  by  the  other 
two-thirds  and  held  in  the  position  of  conquered  terri 
tory  for  years ;  and  before  the  end  of  the  same  event 
ful  century  the  conquering  arms  of  the  great  imperial 
republic  of  North  America  were  carried  into  the  thou 
sand  islands  of  the  Philippines  on  the  other  side  of 
the  world. 

The  Democrats  of  1846-48  failed  to  coin  the  phrase, 
* '  manifest  destiny, ' ?  which  was  so  effectively  employed 
by  the  Eepublicans  of  1898-1900,  but  the  impulse  if 
not  the  argument  was  essentially  the  same  in  both 
cases.  The  chief  difference  between  the  work  of 
"  destiny  "  and  the  Democrats  in  the  forties  and  that 
of  * l  destiny ' ?  and  the  Republicans  in  1898  was  that  the 
latter  acquisition  was  less  distinctly  foreseen  and  less 
u  inevitable  "  than  the  priceless  territory  wrested  from 
Mexico. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  LEADER  OF  THE  WHIG  PARTY 

IT  was  inevitable  that  Stephens7 s  bold  and  searching 
criticism  of  the  war  upon  Mexico  should  be  bitterly 
denounced  by  the  Democrats.  His  discussion  with 
William  Lowndes  Yancey,  of  Alabama,  became  so 
heated  that  a  duel  was  with  difficulty  averted  through 
the  mediation  of  Eobert  Toombs,  and  so  severe  were 
the  reproaches  of  Herschel  V.  Johnson,  of  Georgia,  in 
an  article  in  the  Federal  Union,  that  Stephens  de 
manded  a  retraction  from  his  old  friend  and  challenged 
him.  The  affair  ended  with  the  latter' s  dignified  re 
fusal,  but  the  two  remained  estranged  until  Johnson 
was  elected  Governor  of  Georgia  in  1855,  when  a  rec 
onciliation  was  brought  about  through  the  efforts  of 
friends. 

This  was  not  the  only  occasion  on  which  Stephens 
sought  that  "  satisfaction  "  which  the  Southern  gen 
tleman  of  the  period  was  expected  to  demand,  by  in 
viting  an  offending  political  opponent  to  accept  the 
issue  of  mortal  combat.  In  1856,  after  he  had  aban 
doned  his  own  disintegrating  political  organization 
and  had  been  driven  by  the  slavery  controversy  into 
the  Democratic  fold,  he  was  recklessly  charged  by 
Benjamin  H.  Hill  with  having  "  betrayed  the  Whig 
party  and  having  acted  worse  toward  it  than  Judas 
Iscariot."  Stephens  promptly  challenged  Hill  to  fight 
a  duel  and  the  latter  declined,  publicly  as  well  as  pri- 


86  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

vately,  in  language  that  is  worthy  of  record.  "If  the 
invitation  to  mortal  combat,'7  he  wrote,  "  is  intended 
as  a  mere  formal  occasion,  to  exchange  a  few  harmless 
shots,  I  can  only  say  that  I  never  engage  in  farces. 
.  .  .  It  might  be  some  satisfaction  to  you  to  shoot 
at  me,  though  I  should  entertain  no  great  fear  of  being 
hit  ...  [but]  I  might  possibly  kill  you,  and 
though  you  may  not  consider  your  life  valuable,  to 
take  it  would  be  a  great  annoyance  to  me  afterward. 
The  ceaseless  accusations  of  my  conscience  that  I  was 
a  murderer  would  be  the  bane  of  all  my  future  happi 
ness.  ...  I  regard  dueling  as  no  evidence  of 
courage,  no  vindication  of  truth,  and  no  test  of  the 
character  of  a  true  gentleman.  I  shall  be  a  i  braggart, 
liar  and  poltroon  '  enough,  now  and  forever,  to  declare 
that  what  the  laws  of  God  and  my  native  State  unite  in 
denouncing  as  murder,  could  give  me  no  satisfaction 
to  do,  to  attempt  or  to  desire.  This  determination  is 
but  strengthened  when  the  contrary  course  involves 
the  violation  of  my  conscience  and  the  hazard  of  my 
family,  as  against  a  man  who  has  neither  conscience 
nor  family." 

Angered  by  an  unjust  charge  in  the  first  place,  and 
smarting  the  more  under  Hill's  forcible  reply  to  the 
challenge,  Stephens  expressed  himself,  in  a  card  pub 
lished  in  the  Augusta  Constitutionalist  of  December  12, 
1856,  as  follows  :  "  When  a  mendacious  gasconader 
sets  up  wantonly  to  asperse  private  character  and 
malign  individual  reputation,  and  then  refuses  that  re 
dress  which  a  gentleman  knows  how  to  ask,  as  well  as 
how  to  grant,  no  course  is  left  for  the  most  courteous 
and  decorous,  the  most  upright  and  honorable,  but  to 
put  the  brand  of  infamy  upon  him — there  to  remain 


A  LEADER  OF  THE  WHIG  PAETY         87 

until  a  radical  change  in  his  character,  and  especially 
in  his  conduct,  either  in  giving  personal  insults  or  in 
making  proper  amends  for  them,  shall  remove  it."  In 
the  same  card  he  described  Hill  as  "  not  only  an  impu 
dent  braggart  but  a  despicable  poltroon  besides." 

The  indications  are  that  the  sympathy  of  the  better 
element  of  the  public  was  with  Hill— in  his  dignified 
refusal  to  fight  a  duel,  at  least,  that  action  being  com 
mended  by  a  number  of  newspapers  in  Georgia  and 
neighboring  States  and  no  doubt  by  many  persons  in 
private.  Not  only  did  Hill's  effective  thrust  at 
Stephens — currently  condensed  to  "I  have  a  soul  to 
save  and  a  family  to  support,  and  you  have  neither  " 
— cause  wide-spread  amusement,  but  such  an  attitude 
on  the  part  of  a  man  of  his  eminence  induced  sober  re 
flection  and  did  much  to  discourage  dueling  in  the 
State.  There  is  just  this  much  to  be  said  in  excuse 
of  the  practice,  that  it  placed  a  physical  weakling  such 
as  Stephens  on  a  level  with  a  strong  man  such  as 
Hill  in  the  case  of  intolerable  insult  for  which  the  law 
could  give  no  redress. 

Stephens  had  been  made  to  appreciate  this  by  pain 
ful  experience  when  brutally  assaulted  by  Judge  Cone 
in  1848.  A  duel  in  lieu  of  that  disgraceful  affair  would 
have  been  more  just  to  him,  as  well  as  more  manly  in 
Cone.  The  latter  was  reported  to  have  denounced 
Stephens  as  a  "traitor"  to  his  country  because  of 
some  difference  of  political  opinion,  but  when  Stephens 
inquired  if  he  had  done  so  he  denied  it,  whereupon  the 
former  expressed  gratification,  confessing  that  when 
irritated  by  the  report  he  had  said  in  the  presence  of 
others  that  if  the  Judge  acknowledged  the  utterance 
attributed  to  him  he,  Stephens,  would  slap  his  face. 


88  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

Afterward  the  affair  was  much  talked  of  in  the  State  and 
Cone,  fearing  it  was  thought  he  had  shown  cowardice, 
wrote  Stephens  demanding  a  retraction  of  his  threat. 
Stephens  replied  that  as  the  threat  was  contingent 
upon  Cone's  avowal  of  a  report  which  he  afterward 
pronounced  false,  there  was  now  no  occasion  for  of 
fense  and  no  reason  for  retraction.  Before  the  receipt 
of  this  letter  the  two  men  met  in  a  hotel  in  Atlanta  and 
a  retraction  was  again  angrily  demanded.  Stephens 
replied  that  he  had  already  sent  his  answer  in 
writing  and  could  say  no  more.  Thereupon  Cone 
called  Stephens  a  traitor  and  Stephens  struck  him 
with  his  walking  cane.  Although  he  was  a  large 
muscular  man  and  his  frail  antagonist  was  unarmed, 
Cone  drew  "a  dirk-knife"  and  rushed  upon  Stephens, 
stabbing  him  repeatedly. '  Stephens  fell,  and  though 
he  was  wounded  already  "in  eighteen  places  on  the 
body  and  arms,"  Cone  held  the  knife  above  his 
prostrate  enemy,  crying :  "  Eetract,  or  I  will  cut 
your  throat !  "  "  Never  ! "  said  Stephens,  and  caught 
the  descending  blade  in  his  right  hand,  which  was 
very  seriously  cut  as  Cone  attempted  to  wrench  away 
the  weapon.  At  this  point  Cone  was  dragged  from 
his  victim  by  the  gathering  spectators.  At  first  it  was 
thought  that  Stephens  could  not  survive,  one  knife 
thrust  having  almost  touched  the  heart  and  an  inter 
costal  artery  having  been  severed.  As  a  result  of  his 
injuries  all  of  his  activities  were  interrupted  for  a  con 
siderable  time.  He  refused  to  appear  as  prosecutor, 
but  Cone  was  indicted  and  fined  a  thousand  dollars. 

Stephens' s  criticism  of  the  war  policy  of  the  Polk 
administration  was  the  source  of  anxiety  in  the  Whig 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  233. 


A  LEADEE  OF  THE  WHIG  PAETY         89 

as  well  as  of  anger  in  the  Democratic  party.  It  was 
easier  to  denounce  the  war  than  to  convince  the  people 
of  its  injustice,  while  they  were  rejoicing  over  the  tri 
umphs  of  American  arms.  The  opponents  of  a  success 
ful  war  are  always  in  an  awkward  position.  Having 
already  lost  ground  under  the  administration  of  Tyler, 
the  Whigs  could  now  ill  afford  to  proclaim  from  the 
house-tops  such  convictions  as  had  been  expressed  by 
Stephens.  In  a  letter  of  after  years  describing  the 
situation  he  himself  said  :  "The  Whigs  as  a  party, 
while  opposed  to  the  policy  of  the  war,  were  afraid  to 
do  or  say  anything  that  would  bring  upon  them  what 
they  thought  to  be  the  odium  of  an  anti-war  party. 
The  fate  of  those  who  had  opposed  the  War  of  1812 
stood  as  a  ghost  in  their  path." 

Such  was  the  situation  when,  in  1847,  Stephens 
introduced  his  resolutions  on  the  subject.  "I  con 
sulted  with  all  the  leading  Whigs  in  the  House, 
Northern  and  Southern,  upon  introducing  them,"  he 
relates.  ' '  Every  one  of  them  dissuaded  me  from  it,  but 
I  resolved  upon  doing  it  anyhow.  I  knew  that  I  was 
right."  These  adroit  and  well-timed  resolutions, 
which  put  the  Democrats  on  the  defensive,  if  not  un 
masking  their  aim  of  conquest,  read  as  follows : 

"  Whereas,  It  is  no  less  desirable  that  the  interests  and 
honor  of  our  country  should  be  cordially  sustained  and 
defended  so  long  as  the  present  war  with  Mexico  con 
tinues  to  exist,  than  that  the  conflict  should  not  be 
unnecessarily  prolonged,  but  should  be  terminated  as 
soon  as  an  honorable  peace  can  be  obtained ;  and 
whereas,  it  is  believed  that  a  diversity  of  opinion  pre 
vails  to  a  considerable  extent  as  to  the  ultimate  aims 
and  objects  for  which  the  war  should  be  prosecuted, 
and  it  being  proper  that  this  matter  should  be  settled 


90  ALEXAKDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

by  the  clear  expression  of  the  legislative  will  solemnly 
proclaimed  to  the  world  : 

u  Be  it  therefore  Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America  in  Con 
gress  assembled.  That  the  present  war  with  Mexico  is 
not  waged  with  a  view  to  conquest,  or  the  dismember 
ment  of  that  republic  by  the  acquisition  of  any  portion 
of  her  territory. 

11  Be  it  further  Resolved  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  That 
it  is  the  desire  of  the  United  States  that  hostilities 
should  be  terminated  upon  terms  honorable  to  both 
parties  ;  embracing  a  liberal  settlement  on  our  part  of 
the  questions  growing  out  of  the  proper  and  rightful 
boundary  of  Texas,  and  a  full  recognition  and  proper 
provision  on  her  part  to  be  made  for  all  the  just  claims 
of  our  citizens  against  that  country  ;  the  whole  to  be 
adjusted  by  negotiation,  to  be  instituted  and  effected 
according  to  the  constitutional  forms  of  each  govern 
ment  respectively." 

Commenting  on  the  inevitable  fate  of  these  resolu 
tions  at  the  hands  of  the  majority,  Stephens  remarks  : 

"  Thus  Congress  refused  to  say  that  the  war  was  i  not 
waged  with  a  view  to  conquest,  or  the  dismemberment 
of  Mexico  by  the  acquisition  of  any  of  her  territory/ 
or  that  it  was  '  the  desire  of  the  United  States  that 
hostilities  should  be  terminated  upon  terms  honorable 
to  both  parties. ?  This  refusal  to  avow  what  were  the 
objects  of  the  war  and  to  express  the  desire  for  an  hon 
orable  peace,  gave  a  blow  to  the  administration  from 
the  effects  of  which  it  could  never  recover." 

The  majority  of  the  people  eagerly  consented  to  the 
acquisition  of  an  empire  at  the  expense  of  Mexico,  but 
reverence  for  the  principles  on  which  the  American 
republic  had  been  founded  made  them  equally  ready 
to  rebuke  the  Democratic  leaders  for  their  part  in  the 


A  LEADEE  OF  THE  WHIG  PAETY        91 

\ 

transaction.  The  deed  was  welcome,  but  in  deference 
to  their  principles  they  punished  the  doers  thereof  in 
the  following  elections.  The  Whig  opponents  of  the 
war  exhibited  a  similar  inconsistency  when  in  1848 
they  craftily  selected  a  warrior  as  the  standard  bearer 
of  their  party.  Stephens' s  accusing  resolutions  were 
kept  before  the  people  at  the  suggestion  of  Henry  Clay 
himself,  and  became,  North  and  South,  the  Whig  plat 
form  on  the  war.  Being  asked  what  course  the  party 
should  take,  Clay  replied :  "Pass  the  resolutions  of 
Stephens  of  Georgia. ' ' 

Stephens  was  no  less  strongly  in  favor  of  the  nomi 
nation  of  General  Zachary  Taylor  than  other  leading 
spirits  in  the  Whig  councils.  He  urged  this  course 
with  great  earnestness  from  first  to  last,  believing  that 
Clay  could  not  be  elected  and  that  his  party  should 
take  advantage  of  the  wide-spread  military  enthusiasm. 
Though  not  a  delegate  to  the  Whig  convention  at 
Philadelphia,  his  influence  was  active  in  the  choice  of 
Taylor  whose  election  brought  the  party  again  to 
power.  The  second  of  the  two  "Allison"  letters 
which  formed  its  platform  was  written  at  his  sugges 
tion  by  Crittenden  after  the  two,  in  company  with 
Toombs,  had  discussed  its  proposed  contents.  The 
document  was  forwarded  to  General  Taylor  at  Baton 
Eouge,  but  as  "  Old  Eough  and  Eeady  "  had  already 
expressed  certain  views  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Cap 
tain  Allison,  which  promptly  found  its  way  into  print, 
the  Stephens-Crittenden-Toombs  production  was  also 
addressed  to  Allison  and  put  forward  as  a  supplement 
prepared  after  more  mature  deliberation.  It  was 
much  stronger  and  more  persuasive  than  the  an- 
1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  225. 


92  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

nouncement  in  the  interest  of  General  Cass,  the  Dem 
ocratic  candidate,  and  was  skilfully  employed  through 
out  the  successful  campaign. 

In  the  coming  vast  acquisition  of  territory  Stephens 
saw  not  only  aggression  and  wrong  at  the  expense  of  a 
weak  republic,  but  a  source  of  future  danger  to  the 
Union  itself.  Already  on  August  8, 1846,  David  Wil- 
mot,  of  Pennsylvania,  had  introduced  his  "Proviso," 
which  excluded  slavery  from  the  conquered  territory, 
and,  although  it  openly  violated  the  covenant  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  it  passed  the  House  and  was 
with  difficulty  arrested  in  the  Senate,  largely  through 
the  efforts  of  Calhoun.  Thus  was  the  whole  agitating 
discussion  of  the  area  of  slavery  reopened,  although 
supposed  to  be  settled  finally  by  the  "canonized" 
compromise.  Well  might  Stephens  ask,  in  his  speech 
in  the  House  on  February  12,  1847  :  "  Who  can  sit 
here  and  listen  to  the  debates  daily  on  this  question 
and  look  unmoved  upon  the  prospect  before  us?" 
Well  might  he  add:  "This  Wilmot  Proviso  and 
the  resolutions  from  the  legislatures  of  the  States  of 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  all  of  the  same 
character  and  import,  speak  a  language  that  cannot 
be  mistaken — a  language  of  warning  upon  this  subject, 
and  which  the  country  would  do  well  to  heed  in  time. 
They  show  a  fixed  determination  on  the  part  of  the 
North,  which  is  now  in  a  majority  in  this  House  and 
ever  will  be  hereafter,  that,  if  territory  is  acquired,  the 
institutions  of  the  South  shall  be  forever  excluded 
from  its  limits.)  What  is  to  be  the  result  of  this  mat 
ter  ?  Will  the  'South  submit  to  this  restriction  f  Will 
the  North  ultimately  yield  !  When  the  elements  of 
discord  are  aroused,  who  will  direct  the  storm  ?  Who 


A  LEADEE  OF  THE  WHIG  PARTY         93 

does  not  know  how  this  country  has  been  shaken  to  its 
very  centre  by  the  Missouri  agitation?"  It  is  worth 
while  to  quote  entire  this  solemn,  prophetic  conclu 
sion  of  a  far-seeing  mind  : 

"  As  a  political  institution  I  shall  never  argue  the 
question  of  slavery  here.  I  plead  to  the  jurisdiction. 
The  subject  belongs  exclusively  to  the  States.  There 
the  Constitution  wisely  left  it ;  and  there  Congress,  if 
it  acts  wisely,  will  let  it  remain.  Whether  the  South 
will  submit  to  the  threatened  proscription,  it  is  not  my 
province  to  say.  The  language  of  defiance  should 
always  be  the  last  alternative.  But  as  I  value  this 
Union,  and  all  the  blessings  which  its  security  and 
permanency  promise,  not  only  to  the  present  but  com 
ing  generations,  I  invoke  gentlemen  not  to  put  this 
principle  to  the  test.  (I  have  great  confidence  in  the 
strength  of  the  Union,  so  long  as  sectional  feelings  and 
prejudices  are  kept  quiet  and  undisturbe<i — so  long  as 
harmony  is  preserved  amongst  the  States.)  But  I  have 
no  disposition  to  test  its  strength  by  running  against 
that  rock  upon  which  Mr.  Jefferson  predicted  we 
should  be  finally  wrecked.  And  the  signs  of  the 
times,  unless  I  greatly  mistake  them,  are  not  of  a 
character  to  be  left  unheeded.  With  virtue,  intelli 
gence  and  patriotism  on  the  part  of  the  people ;  and 
integrity,  prudence,  wisdom,  and  a  due  regard  to  all 
the  great  interests  of  the  country  on  the  part  of  our 
rulers,  a  bright  and  glorious  destiny  awaits  us.  But 
if  bad  counsels  prevail ;  if  all  the  solemn  admonitions 
of  the  present  and  the  past  are  disregarded;  if  the 
policy  of  the  administration  is  to  be  carried  out ;  if 
Mexico,  the  *  forbidden  fruit/  is  to  be  seized  at  every 
hazard,  I  very  much  fear  that  those  who  control  public 
affairs,  in  their  eager  pursuit  of  the  unenviable  distinc 
tion  of  despoiling  a  neighboring  republic,  will  have 
the  still  less  enviable  glory  of  looking  back  upon  the 
shattered  and  broken  fragments  of  their  own  con 
federacy.  And  instead  of  gloating  over  the  ruins  of 


94  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

the  ancient  cities  of  the  Aztecs,  they  may  be  compelled 
to  turn  and  behold  in  their  rear  another  and  a  wider 
prospect  of  desolation,  carnage  and  blood." 

Probably  it  was  such  utterances  as  this  that  caused 
the  Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger  of  August  30,  1848, 
to  declare  that  the  Whigs  of  the  seventh  district  had 
t  i  done  themselves  infinite  honor  "  by  placing  Stephens, 
"the  bold,  daring,  chivalrous  defender  of  Southern 
rights,"  again  before  the  people  for  reelection.  In  a 
private  letter  written  just  before  the  quoted  speech 
was  delivered  Stephens  suggests  that  "  perhaps  Polk 
in  starting  one  war  may  find  half  a  dozen  on  his 
hands,"  and  adds,  referring  to  the  "  dark  and  gloomy 
prospect"  as  regards  any  adjustment  of  the  sectional 
difference  connected  with  the  slavery  question:  "I 
hope  for  the  best  while  I  fear  the  worst."  Curiously 
enough,  he  writes  later  of  curing  his  melancholy  of 
this  period  by  reading  Burton's  Anatomy  of  that  dis 
temper,  jocosely  referring  to  his  absorption  of  the 
mental  pabulum  provided  by  the  pedantic  sixteenth 
century  writer  as  a  resort  to  "  homoeopathic  practice." 

After  the  election  of  1848  trouble  began  for  the 
Southern  Whigs  who  found  it  increasingly  difficult  to 
agree  with  the  Northern  representatives  of  their  party. 
The  sympathy  of  the  latter  for  the  Abolition  move 
ment  became  more  and  more  manifest.  The  final 
absorption  of  the  Northern  Whigs  into  the  growing  Free 
Soil  or  Republican  party  was  already  indicated  by  the 
events  of  the  hour.  This  party  in  1844  had  polled  for 
its  first  candidate  less  than  65,000  votes,  but  in  1848 
Martin  Van  Buren  and  Charles  Francis  Adams  re 
ceived  nearly  300,000  votes.  Its  platform  repudiated 


A  LEADER  OF  THE  WHIG  PAETY        95 

the  Missouri  Compromise  line  and  declared  that 
slavery  should  be  prohibited  in  all  territory  of  the 
United  States  where  it  was  not  already  established. 
So  far  as  the  vexing  question  was  concerned,  Southern 
Whigs  were  Democrats  and  Northern  Whigs  were 
Free-Soilers.  Disintegration  was  inevitable,  although 
for  several  years  delayed.  "Last  night  in  caucus, "  , 
wrote  Stephens  from  Washington  on  December  2, 
1849,  u  we  wanted  the  Northern  Whigs  to  agree  not  to 
press  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  not  to  favor  or  vote  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
This  they  would  not  do.  I  believe  they  are  bent  on 
mischief. "  He  adds  that  he  quitted  the  meeting  as 
did  Toombs  and  other  Southern  Whigs.  "  I  told  them 
distinctly,"  he  says,  "  that  I  should  hold  no  connection 
with  a  party  that  did  not  disconnect  itself  with  these 
aggressive  abolition  movements."  The  next  day,  after 
extended  discussions  with  some  of  the  Northern  Whigs, 
he  reports  that  they  ' i  seem  disposed  to  yield  noth 
ing"  and  "  intend  to  carry  abolition  anywhere  they 
can  by  the  Constitution."  Even  the  Northern  Demo 
crats  were  being  converted  to  the  free-soil  movement, 
and  sectionalism  was  becoming  intensified.  "  I  find," 
writes  Stephens  on  December  5th,  "that  the  feeling 
among  the  Southern  members  for  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union — if  the  anti- slavery  measures  should  be  pressed 
to  extremity — is  becoming  much  more  general  than  at 
first.  Men  are  now  beginning  to  talk  of  it  seriously 
who,  twelve  months  ago,  hardly  permitted  themselves 
to  think  of  it."  As  for  himself,  he  would  not  yet 
"despair  of  the  Republic,"  but  what  he  saw  and  heard 
caused  him  already  to  be  u  prepared  for  the  worst." 
On  January  21,  1850,  he  writes  from  Washington : 


96  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

"  When  I  look  at  the  causes  of  the  present  discontent  I 
am  persuaded  there  will  never  again  be  harmony  be 
tween  the  two  great  sections  of  the  Union.  When  Cali 
fornia  and  New  Mexico  and  Oregon  and  Nebraska  are 
admitted  as  States,  then  the  majority  in  the  Senate 
will  be  against  us.  The  power  will  be  with  them  to 
harass,  annoy  and  oppress."  He  feels  that  there  can 
be  no  real  adjustment  of  the  sectional  difference,  no 
matter  what  nominal  compromises  may  be  adopted, 
and  with  clear  vision  perceives  that  the  North  will  in 
.the  end  fully  respond  to  the  Abolition  impulse,  when 
slavery  even  in  the  Southern  States  will  be  doomed. 
"It  is  a  great  mistake,"  he  writes  in  the  first  month 
of  this  eventful  mid-century  year,  "  to  suppose  that 
the  South  can  stave  off  this  question.  We  have  ulti 
mately  to  submit  or  fight."  And  so,  much  against  his 
will,  he  now  speaks  of  secession  as  a  probability  to 
be  reckoned  with.  "Could  the  South  maintain  a 
separate  political  organization?"  he  asks,  and  goes  on 
to  tell  his  correspondent  that  he  has  given  much  con 
sideration  to  this  question.  i '  The  result  of  my  reflec 
tion  is  that  she  could,  if  her  people  be  united."  Yet 
when  the  proposition  came  up  in  his  own  State  a  few 
months  later,  he  fought  it  not  less  energetically  than 
he  did  early  in  1861 — hoping,  still  hoping  to  heal  the 
breachr  and  keep  the  Union  intact. 

Although  Stephens  displayed  strong  attachment  for 
the  Union  in  both  crises,  that  of  1850  and  1861,  his  let 
ters  indicate  a  greater  willingness  to  yield  to  the 
clamor  for  secession  in  the  former  than  in  the  latter 
year.  This  was  doubtless  because  in  the  first  instance 
the  prospect  of  a  peaceable  separation  was  more  favor 
able.  In  1850  Clay  and  Calhoun  were  still  active,  the 


A  LEADER  OF  THE  WHIG  PAETY         97 

South  still  dominated  to  a  very  considerable  extent  at 
Washington,  and  the  growing  sentiment  of  nationalism 
had  by  no  means  assumed  the  proportions  witnessed 
eleven  years  later.  Only  five  years  before  Massachu 
setts  had  asserted  State  sovereignty  and  virtually 
claimed  the  right  both  of  nullification  and  secession.1 
Moreover,  the  extreme  Abolitionists  themselves  were 
demanding  that  the  free  States  should  cut  loose  from 
the  slave  States,  and  bitterly  denounced  the  Constitu 
tion  as  being  on  the  side  of  the  latter.  It  is  also  true 
that  the  desire  of  the  North  to  maintain  the  Union 
for  commercial  reasons  was  stronger  in  1861  than  in 
1850.  But  when  it  was  proposed  that  Georgia  should 
secede  in  1861  Stephens  was  convinced  that  war  would 
result,  and  openly  said  so  at  a  time  when  few  of  his 
friends  agreed  with  him.  An  inquiry  into  the  condi 
tions  during  the  two  periods  forces  the  conclusion  that 
if  the  secessionists  had  been  more  observant,  they 
would  have  preferred  to  make  the  attempt  in  1850. 
Their  movement  at  that  date  would  not  have  been 
challenged  with  the  same  determination,  and  their 
chances  of  success  in  all  respects  would  have  been 
superior.  Secession  in  1850  was  impossible,  however, 
because  a  sufficient  unanimity  of  sentiment  could  not 
be  brought  about,  owing  to  the  vigorous  opposition  in 
all  the  Southern  States  of  such  determined  Unionists  as 
Stephens  and  Toombs,  of  Georgia. 

In  a  letter,  dated  February  10,  1850,  Stephens  refers 
to  the  Nashville  Convention  of  November,  1850.  "I 
see  no  prospects  of  the  continuance  of  this  Union 
long, ' '  he  says.  ' l  The  Nashville  Convention  will  be 
held.  It  will  be  the  nucleus  of  another  sectional  as- 

1  See  ante,  pp.  51-54. 


98  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

semblage.  A  fixed  alienation  of  feeling  will  be  the 
result.  The  anti-slavery  feeling  and  feeling  of  dis 
memberment  [secession]  may  be  abated  but  will  return 
with  increased  force." 

This  Nashville  Convention,  which  is  described  by  the 
Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger,  of  August  27,  1851,  as 
"a  second  Hartford  Convention,"  (being  in  many  re 
spects  similar  to  that  body),  and  which  was  attended 
by  delegates  from  all  of  the  Southern  States,  not  only 
protested  against  the  admission  of  California  with 
an  anti-slavery  constitution  and  charged  the  North 
with  an  unfair  and  unwarrantable  determination  to 
exclude  the  South  from  a  share  in  the  territories, 
but  also  threateningly  asserted  the  right  of  sov 
ereign  States  to  resume  an  independent  and  separate 
existence  at  will.  "  If, "  continues  Stephens,  greatly 
/  depressed  by  the  outlook,  "  we  had  virtue  and  patriot- 
/  isin  among  our  people  and  not  demagogism,  I  should 
Lliope  much  from  a  Southern  Confederacy."  Twenty 
days  earlier  he  had  spoken  hopefully  of  the  South' s 
capacity  to  maintain  a  separate  political  existence,  but 
the  actions  and  characteristics  of  some  of  the  clamorers 
for  secession  apparently  had  caused  him  to  take  a  dif 
ferent  view.  "We  have  the  ability,"  he  goes  on, 
"the  natural  position  and  the  resources  for  a  great 
and  prosperous  people.  All  the  elements  of  power  and 
progress  are  still  within  reach.  But  I  fear  we  should 
I  soon  degenerate  into  factions  headed  by  bad  leaders 
/wh°  would  look  only  to  their  own  distinction." 
"""'these  utterances  of  February,  1850,  are  of  great  in 
terest  when  viewed  in  connection  with  the  divided 
counsels,  the  factions  and  the  jealousies  which  did  in 
calculable  injury  to  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy  of 


A  LEADEK  OF  THE  WHIG  PAETY         99 

1861-5 — Stephens  himself  contributing  no  little  to  the 
confusion  and  being  distinctly  an  element  of  weakness 
on  account  of  his  honest  but  indiscreet  and  too  openly 
expressed  criticisms  of  his  colleagues,  particularly  of 
the  sentiments  and  methods  of  the  Confederacy's  chief. 
He  now  turns  for  a  moment  from  these  perplexities 
and  forebodings,  arising  chiefly  from  the  hopeless 
quarrel  over  slavery,  in  order  to  contribute  to  the 
happiness  of  a  faithful  slave.  On  March  14,  1850,  he 
wrote  to  Linton  Stephens  from  Washington  as  follows  : 

"  In  my  letter  written  at  the  House  to-day  I  forgot  to 
reply  to  the  request  of  Googer's  Harry  to  take  Eliza 
for  his  wife.  Say  to  him  that  I  have  no  objection. 
And  tell  Eliza  to  go  to  Solomon  &  Henry's  and  get  her 
a  wedding  dress,  including  a  pair  of  fine  shoes,  etc. , 
and  to  have  a  decent  wedding  of  it.  Let  them  cook  a 
supper  and  have  such  of  their  friends  as  they  wish. 
Tell  them  to  get  some  l  parson  man '  and  be  married 
like  '  Christian  folks.'  Let  the  wedding  come  off  some 
time  when  you  are  at  home,  so  that  you  may  keep  or 
der  amongst  them.  Buy  a  pig  and  let  them  have  a 
good  supper.  Let  Eliza  bake  some  pound  cake  and 
set  a  good  wedding  supper. ' '  ' 

Shortly  after  this  marriage  Stephens  purchased  the 
dusky  bridegroom  as  a  kindness  to  the  bride,  and  un 
til  his  death  thirty  years  later  "  Harry  Stephens " 
acted  as  his  master's  faithful  and  much-esteemed  body 
servant — half  of  that  time  as  a  slave  and  the  other  half 
as  a  free  man.  When  the  writer  of  this  biography  vis 
ited  Stephens' s  old  home,  "  Liberty  Hall,"  in  1904,  the 
widowed  Eliza  was  still  living  and  occupied  a  com 
fortable  two- story  house  and  lot  which  Stephens  had 

1  James  D.  Waddell,  Life  of  Linton  Stephens,  p.  96. 


100  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

assigned  to  his  body  servant  and  cook  after  they  were 
emancipated,  telling  them  that  they  might  pay  him 
whatever  they  felt  they  could  afford.  It  appears  that 
this  was  really  a  gift  and  was  accepted  as  such,  although 
Harry  and  Eliza,  for  a  few  years  after  the  war,  rela 
tively  speaking,  were  richer  than  their  former  master. 
They  had  saved  considerable  money  during  many  years 
from  tips  given  them  by  guests.  Eliza  stated,  for 
example,  that  the  princely  Eobert  Toombs,  a  constant 
visitor,  never  failed  to  give  her  two  dollars  when  he 
took  his  leave.  It  is  related  that  the  faithful  Harry 
offered  to  lend  his  master  money  when  the  latter  was 
arrested  and,  without  time  for  preparation,  was  carried 
off  to  Fort  Warren  as  a  political  prisoner  in  1865. 

As  the  kindly  relationship  between  master  and  serv 
ant  was  as  real  as  any  other  phase  of  the  slavery  regime, 
the  evidence  volunteered  by  Eliza  Stephens,  a  typical, 
coal-black  "  mammy  "  of  the  old  South,  is  not  without 
historical  interest.  She  spoke  of  her  former  master  no 
less  affectionately  than  reverently  and  declared  that  he 
was  the  " best"  man  in  the  world.  "Ef  he  ain't  in 
heaven,"  she  said,  "  'tain't  no  use  for  anybody  else  to 
try  to  git  dere."  She  declared  there  was  never  a  time 
when  she  was  not  ready  to  "  work  her  fingers  off,'7  in 
order  to  win  his  praise  of  her  industry.  She  stated 
that  she  had  belonged  to  him  ever  since  she  was  six 
years  old,  and  during  all  the  long  period  he  had  < l  never 
said  a  cross  word."  She  delighted  to  talk  of  the  "  big 
dinners"  at  u  Liberty  Hall "  in  former  times,  which 
were  of  three  kinds  :  those  that  the  master  allowed  the 
servants  to  give  their  friends  at  intervals,  without 
restriction  as  to  cost  5  those  of  the  barbecue  variety  for 
the  white  people  of  the  countryside,  for  whom  a  whole 


A  LEADER  OF  THE  WHIG  PAETY       101 

beef,  lambs,  pigs  and  chickens  were  slaughtered  ;  and 
those  of  a  more  private  and  social  character  in  honor 
of  General  Toornbs,  Governor  Johnson  and  other  dis 
tinguished  persons,  with  delicate  as  well  as  sumptuous 
dishes,  and  a  half-dozen  wine  glasses  at  the  plate  of 
each  guest.  The  narrator  was  particular  to  state  that 
her  hero  had  never  been  known  to  "  say  a  cuss  word," 
or  even  to  make  an  ill-natured  remark,  whatever  the 
provocation.  Heard  in  a  period  when  the  two  races 
are  continually  drifting  farther  apart  in  sympathy,  the 
fond  reminiscences  of  this  faithful  old  servitor  were  of 
the  nature  of  echoes  from  an  almost  forgotten  past. 


CHAPTEE  VI 

THE  SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1 

IN  1850  there  were  in  the  North,  including  Oregon 
and  California,  13,269,149  whites,  196,262  free  blacks, 
and  262  slaves — 26  of  the  latter  being  in  Utah  and 
236  in  New  Jersey.  In  the  South,  including  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky  and 
Missouri,  there  were  6,283,965  whites,  238,187  free 
blacks,  and  3,204,057  slaves.  These  figures  show  how 
important  to  the  South,  and  how  relatively  unimpor 
tant  to  the  North,  on  the  material  side,  it  was  to  secure 
the  maintenance  of  the  institution  of  slavery,  not  only 
in  the  States  where  it  already  existed,  but  in  new  terri 
tory  where  it  might  exist. .  For  if  the  area  of  slavery 
did  not  grow  as  the  country  grew,  it  would  soon  be 
confined  to  a  comparatively  small  section,  its  repre 
sentatives  would  be  outvoted  at  every  point,  and  the 
institution  itself  would  eventually  be  doomed,  although 
from  the  outset  recognized  by  the  Constitution  and 
fortified  by  law.  This  explains  the  long  and  bitter 
contest  over  the  question  of  the  extension  of  slavery 
into  the  territories,  and  accounts  for  the  growing  con 
viction  that  the  Southern  States  must  ultimately  sur 
render  the  institution  or  retire  from  the  Union. 

Neither  North  nor  South  was  now  satisfied  with  the 
Missouri  Compromise  making  36°  30'  the  dividing  line 
westward  between  free  labor  and  slave  labor.  Nor 
was  either  section  satisfied  to  leave  the  question  to  the 


SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1        103 

States  and  territories  themselves,  although  this  was  the 
original  Southern  position,  and  was  often  reasserted. 
On  the  one  hand  the  Wilmot  Proviso  sought  to  give 
Congress  the  right  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  terri 
tories  and  to  deny  the  right  of  the  people  thereof  to 
choose  in  favor  of  slavery.  On  the  other  hand,  Cal- 
houn  in  1847  introduced  in  the  Senate  resolutions  con 
taining  a  provision  against  the  enactment  of  any  law 
which  should  directly  or  indirectly  "  deprive  the  citi 
zens  of  any  of  the  States  from  emigrating  with  their 
I  propp.rty  into  any  of  the  territories  of  the  United 
^States."  Such  was  the  apparently  irreconcilable  sec 
tional  difference  when,  in  1849,  California  asked  for 
admission  under  an  anti-slavery  constitution,  and 
when,  in  1850,  Clay  offered  his  compromise  measures. 
How  ably  and  determinedly  the  South  fought  against 
any  further  inequality  in  numbers  between  the  free  and 
slave  States  appears  from  the  fact  that  the  admission 
of  California  was  debated  by  Congress  for  ten  months. 
Stephens  described  the  Compromise  of  1850  as  "  an 
agreement  on  the  part  of  the  slaveholding  States  to 
continue  in  the  Union,  in  consideration  of  these  re 
newed  pledges  on  the  part  of  the  non-slaveholding 
States,  through  their  members  and  senators,  to  abide 
by  the  Constitution."  These  " renewed  pledges" 
were  involved  in  the  acceptance  of  Clay's  proposal  to 
admit  California,  and  to  establish  territorial  govern 
ments  in  New  Mexico  and  the  rest  of  the  area  acquired 
from  Mexico  without  any  provision  for  or  against 
slavery;  to  declare  that  it  was  " inexpedient "  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  "  ex 
pedient  ' '  to  place  restrictions  on  the  selling  of  slaves 
there  j  to  pass  a  new  and  more  effective  fugitive  slave 


104  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

law,  and  formally  to  deny  that  Congress  had  any 
power  to  obstruct  the  slave  trade  between  the  States. 

We  must  take  note  in  passing  of  an  utterance  of 
Calhoun  and  one  of  Webster,  in  the  debate  on  the 
Compromise  of  1850,  because  of  their  bearing  on  what 
followed.  The  former  brushed  aside  the  tissue  of 
evasions  offered  by  temporizing  politicians  and  laid 
bare  the  real  conditions  in  the  more  powerful  Northern 
section  which  already  threatened  the  doom  of  slavery 
in  the  weaker.  "In  a  short  time,"  he  said,  " after 
the  commencement  of  their  [the  Abolitionists']  first 
movement  they  had  acquired  sufficient  influence  to 
induce  the  legislatures  of  most  of  the  Northern  States 
to  pass  acts  which,  in  effect,  abrogated  the  clause  in 
the  Constitution  providing  for  the  delivery  up  of  fugi 
tive  slaves."  He  charged  that  the  great  body  of  both 
parties  in  the  North,  "although  disavowing  the 
Abolitionists,  have  cooperated  with  them  in  almost  all 
their  measures.7'  He  said  the  issue  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  more  powerful  section ;  would  the  North  do 
that  justice  which  was  imperative  if  the  Southern 
States  were  to  remain  in  the  Union  ' i  with  safety  and 
|  honor"  ?  He  prophesied  a  dissolution  of  the  Union, 
unless  Congress  refused  altogether  to  take  jurisdiction 
in  the  matter  of  slavery,  and  he  solemnly  concluded  : 
1 '  The  South  has  no  compromise  to  offer  but  the  Consti 
tution.''7 

In  his  Constitutional  View  of  the  War1  Stephens 
quotes  from  a  pamphlet  copy  of  a  speech  delivered  by 
Daniel  Webster  at  Capon  Springs,  Va.,  June  28,  1851, 
as  follows:  "If  the  Northern  States  refuse  wilfully 
and  deliberately  to  carry  into  effect  that  part  of  the 
1  Vol.  I,  p.  405. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

;  «JT{ 
SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1        105 

Constitution  which  respects  the  restoration  of  fugitive 
slaves,  and  Congress  provide  no  remedy,  the  South 
would  no  longer  be  bound  to  observe  the  compact  [of 
Union].  A  bargain  cannot  be  broken  on  one  side  and 
still  bind  the  other  side.'7  In  his  speech  in  the  Senate 
on  March  7, 1850,  three  days  after  Calhoun  had  spoken, 
Webster  did  not  go  as  far  as  this,  but  he  frankly  ad 
mitted  that  the  Southern  States  had  just  cause  for  com 
plaint.  He  said : 

"  There  has  been  found  among  individuals  and  leg 
islatures  a  disinclination  to  perform  fully  their  Consti 
tutional  duties  in  regard  to  the  return  of  persons  bound 
to  service  who  have  escaped  into  the  free  States.  In 
that  respect,  the  South,  in  my  judgment,  is  right,  and 
the  North  is  wrong.  Every  member  of  every  Northern 
legislature  is  bound  by  oath,  like  every  other  officer  in 
the  country,  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  ;  and  the  article  of  the  Constitution  which  says 
to  these  States  that  they  shall  deliver  up  fugitives  from 
service  is  as  binding  in  honor  and  conscience  as  any 
other  article.  ...  I  desire  to  call  the  attention 
of  all  sober-minded  men  at  the  North,  of  all  conscien 
tious  men,  of  all  men  who  are  not  carried  away  by 
some  fanatical  idea  or  some  false  impression,  to  their 
Constitutional  obligations.  I  put  it  to  all  the  sober 
and  sound  minds  at  the  North  as  a  question  of  morals 
and  a  question  of  conscience.  What  right  have  they 
in  their  legislative  capacity,  or  in  any  other  capacity, 
to  endeavor  to  get  round  this  Constitution,  or  to  em 
barrass  the  free  exercise  of  the  rights  secured  by  the 
Constitution  to  the  persons  whose  slaves  escape  from 
them?  None  at  all,  none  at  all.  ...  I  repeat, 
therefore,  sir,  that  here  is  a  well  grounded  complaint 
against  the  North,  which  ought  to  be  removed." 

A  similar  appeal  was  made  by  President  Buchanan 
in  his  message  of  December,  1860,  referring  to  the 


106  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Constitution-nullifying  "  personal  liberty"  enact 
ments  of  the  New  England  and  other  Northern  States 
intended  to  make  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  1850  of 
no  effect.  Had  Daniel  Webster  known  on  March 
7,  1850,  all  that  James  Buchanan  knew  in  December, 
1860,  his  language  would  no  doubt  have  been  even 
more  emphatic.  Webster's  speech  was  plainly  in 
tended  to  check  the  violence  of  the  anti-slavery  move 
ment  and  thus  to  save  the  Union,  and  certainly  it  was 
largely  due  to  him  that  Clay's  compromise  measure 
was  accepted  and  temporarily  sustained  in  the  North. 
How  real  was  the  danger  of  secession  in  1850,  and 
how  much  the  thought  of  it  was  in  men's  minds,  may 
be  seen  from  the  testimony  of  the  single  fact  that 
President  Taylor,  in  his  message  of  December,  1849, 
urged  the  fostering  of  "  attachment  to  the  Union  of 
States,"  declaring  that  "its  dissolution  would  be  the 
greatest  of  calamities,  and  to  avert  which  should  be 
the  study  of  every  American." 

The  Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger,  of  August,  1850, 
referring  to  a  speech  by  Stephens  at  Warrenton, 
credits  him  with  saying  that  he  had  no  sympathy  with 
those  demanding  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  at  that 
time,  although  there  might  be  a  time  to  come  when 
the  encroachment  of  the  general  government  on  the 
rights  of  the  States  would  compel  aggrieved  States  to 
withdraw.  But  the  threatened  dangers  had  now  been 
warded  off,  and  he  was  not  without  hope  that  they 
might  continue  to  be.  l  i  He  thought  our  present  gov 
ernment,  if  properly  administered,  was  the  best  in  the 
world"  and  he  was  "not  in  favor  of  dissolution  for 
any  existing  evils." 
T?  The  strength  of  the  Union  sentiment  in  Georgia  at 


SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1        107 

(this  time  will  surprise  the  inquirer  accustomed  to  the 
supposition  that  a  disunion  attitude  was  more  or  less 
common  in  the  South  for  many  years  prior  to  1861. 
This  is  shown  in  the  Georgia  Resolutions  of  1850,  al 
though  these  distinctly  threaten  secession  as  a  last  re 
sort.  It  is  also  manifested  in  the  State  election  of  1851, 
and  in  the  utterances  of  the  newspapers  in  both  years. 
The  Macon  Journal  and  Messenger,  of  September  11, 
1850,  commented  bitterly  on  a  report  that  "the  form 
of  government  for  a  Southern  Confederacy  has  already 
been  fixed  upon  by  certain  disunionists,"  and  on 
September  18th  the  same  newspaper  said  :  1 l  Since  the 
mask  has  been  drawn  from  the  disunion  project  in 
Georgia  it  is  astonishing  how  bold  and  denunciatory  its 
advocates  have  become.  Some  of  the  presses  seem  to 
be  edited  by  infuriated  madmen  and  the  public  speakers 
deport  themselves  like  men  partially  demented. 
They  have  no  spirit  of  toleration,  but  fiercely  denounce 
as  cowards  and  traitors  all  who  do  not  rally  under  the 
bloody  flag  of  disunion." 

The  Athens  Banner  of  September  19,  1850,  pro 
claimed  "unceasing  hostility"  toward  the  disunion- 
ists  "  until  they  shall  ground  the  arms  of  their  rebel 
lion  against  a  government  fraught  with  more  blessings 
not  only  to  its  citizens,  but  to  the  whole  human  race, 
than  any  in  the  records  of  history."  "We  take  our 
stand  boldly  for  the  Union  as  it  is  and  call  upon  all 
lovers  of  rational  liberty  to  rally  to  its  banner  in  this 
its  hour  of  peril.  .  .  .  We  know  no  party  but  that 
of  *  the  Union  upon  the  basis  of  the  late  Congressional 
adjustment  of  the  territorial  and  slavery  questions/ 
Such  is  the  faith  by  which  we  shall  live  or  die." 

The  Macon  Journal  and  Messenger,  of  February  19, 


108  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

1851,  is  pleased  to  quote  a  legislative  member  on  "the 
absurdity  of  secession"  as  follows  :  "  Louisiana  was 
purchased  of  France  and  paid  for  by  the  United  States, 
but  by  the  right  of  secession  the  State  of  Louisiana 
could  go  out  of  the  Union  the  next  day  after  she  had 
been  purchased  for  the  express  benefit  of  the  Union. 
She  could  establish  an  independent  government  and 
tax  all  the  produce  of  the  United  States  passing  down 
the  Mississippi  Eiver."  The  secessionists  of  the  new 
States  found  it  more  difficult  to  meet  this  argument 
than  those  of  the  States  included  among  the  original 
thirteen.  A  month  earlier  the  same  newspaper  gladly 
announced  that  the  North  Carolina  "  House  of  Delegates 
has  by  a  vote  of  thirty-one  to  sixteen  rejected  a  res 
olution  affirming  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede." 
Such  was  their  enthusiasm  for  the  Union  that  the  Mari 
etta  Helicon  and  the  American  Whiff,  both  of  Georgia, 
changed  their  names  to  the  Constitutional  Union,  and 
the  American  Union,  respectively. 

The  Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger,  of  May  21,  1851, 
astutely  observed  :     "They  [the  secessionists  and  Abo 
litionists]  agree  in  all  points  except  one  ;  and  upon  that 
they  are  aiming  at  the  same  end  for  opposite  reasons. 
fThe  Abolitionists  declare  that  disunion  will  destroy 
\  slavery — the  secessionists  contend  that  it  will  perpet- 
luateit!"     And  after  quoting  from  the  resolution  of 
the  Southern  Eights  Convention  of  South  Carolina, 
holding  "the  right  of  secession  to  be  essential  to  the 
sovereignty  and  freedom  of  the  States  of  this  Confeder 
acy,"  the  Journal  and  Messenger  cites  the  following 
from  the  resolutions  of  the  Abolition  convention  at 
Syracuse,    N.  Y.  :     "Eesolved,  That   odious   as   has 
been  the  government  principle  of  South  Carolina  for 


SECESSION  AGITATION  OP  1850-1        109 

the  last  twenty  years,  we  cannot  withhold  from  her 
the  praise  justly  due  to  her  consistent  maintenance  of 
the  great  cardinal  doctrine  of  the  right  of  secession  by 
the  single  State — a_dojctHti^¥i^aHirribertxan4  the  only 
safeguard  of  the  several  sovereignties  from  the 
tyranny  of  a  grasping  centralization."  1  The  Journal 
and  Messenger  of  August  27,  1851,  refers  to  a  descrip 
tion  in  the  Eichmond  Enquirer,  date  of  December  10, 
1808,  of  a  gathering  of  the  electors  of  Virginia  (as 
sembled  to  cast  their  vote  for  Jefferson)  at  Swan 
Tavern  in  Eichmond,  the  Madison  corresponding  com 
mittee  and  the  governor  of  the  State  being  their  guests. 
At  this  historic  meeting,  it  appears,  ' '  bumpers ' '  were 
enthusiastically  emptied  in  honor  of  this  toast :  "  The 
Union  of  States  ;  the  majority  must  govern  ;  it  is  treason  to 
secede.71  Commenting,  the  Journal  and  Messenger,  of 
the  date  given,  says  that  i  i  this  toast  was  aimed  at  the 
New  England  secessionists,  afterward  known  as  the 
black  cockade  Federalists,  and  the  Hartford  conven 
tionists,"  and  sarcastically  observes  :  "All  must  ad 
mit  'the  case  being  altered  alters  the  case,7  and  the 
theory  of  secession  by  a  New  England  State  in  1808  is 
quite  a  different  thing  from  secession  by  a  Southern 
State  in  1851.  .  .  .  The  doctrine  of  secession, 
therefore,  is  the  doctrine  of  the  old  New  England 
Federalists— the  Hartford  conventionists — of  the  black 
cockade  Federalists.  It  is  now  the  doctrine  of  the 
Nashville  conventionists,  the  Syracuse  Abolition  con 
ventionists,  of  the  disunionists  of  South  Carolina,  and 
of  the  McDonald  men  of  Georgia." 
The  Macon  Union  Banner,  of  September  6,  1851, 

1  See  report  of  the  Syracuse  Convention  of  May  7-10, 1851,  in  the 
National  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  of  May  15  and  22,  1851. 


110  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

argues  that l  i  the  Union  of  States  is  perfect  and  perpet 
ual,"  and  the  Savannah  Republican  a  few  days  later 
earnestly  calls  on  all  lovers  of  the  Union  to  support 
Howell  Cobb  for  governor  and  to  make  every  effort  to 
return  a  majority  of  Union  men  to  the  legislature.  In 
the  presence  of  the  peril  of  secession  "  nothing  re 
mains  to  be  done  but  for  the  people  to  rise  in  their 
might  and  with  a  torrent  of  indignation  signally  to  re 
buke  at  the  ballot  box  the  fell  spirit  of  insubordina 
tion  now  rife  among  the  fire-eaters,  which  threatens 
the  overthrow  of  the  government  and  the  total  destruc 
tion  of  all  that  freemen  hold  dear.  We  verily  believe 
that  the  issues  involved  in  this  canvass  are  peace, 
safety  and  prosperity  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  secession,  revolution  and  war." 

The  utterances  of  the  secession  newspapers  are 
equally  interesting.  The  language  on  both  sides  was 
scarcely  less  bitter  than  that  employed  in  the  North 
and  in  the  South  eleven  years  later.  Georgians  who 
wanted  to  go  out  of  the  Union  were  guilty  of  i '  trea 
son,"  while  those  other  Georgians  who  wanted  to  stay 
in  were  i  i  traitors ' '  to  their  own  people.  The  Southern 
Eights  party  supporting  McDonald  insisted  that  the 
South  was  degraded  by  the  Compromise  Measures. 
Their  platform,  based  on  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
Eesolutions  of  1798,  asserted  the  right  of  secession,  op 
posed  the  compromise  doctrine  of  non-intervention, 
and  demanded  interference  by  Congress  in  favor  of 
admitting  slavery  into  the  territories.  i  i  We  have  all 
^long  contended,"  said  the  Columbus  Sentinel,  of  Sep 
tember  12,  1850,  "that  the  admission  of  California 
:  would  fill  to  overflowing  the  poisoned  cup  of  degrada 
tion  which  the  North  has  for  years  been  preparing  for 


SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1        111 

the  South.  .  .  .  We  now  abandon  the  Union  as 
an  engine  of  infamous  oppression.  We  are  for  seces 
sion,  open,  unqualified  secession.  Henceforth  we  are 
for  war  upon  the  government  ;  it  has  existed  but  for 
our  ruin,  and  to  the  extent  of  our  ability  to  destroy 
\  it,  it  shall  exist  no  longer.  " 

A  communication  in  the  Savannah  Georgian,  August 
22,  1851,  read  as  follows  :  "It  is  the  highest  duty  of 
patriotism  to  wage  an  undying  hostility  to  this  Union. 
It  has  failed,  most  signally  failed,  to  accomplish  the 
instead  of  being  a  blessing  to 


us,  it  is  a  curse  ;  instead  of  being  a  sheet  anchor  of  our 
liberties,  it  is  a  machine  of  oppression.  The  Union 
is  even  now  virtually  dissolved.  Nearly  all  the  cords 
that  bound  the  States  together  are  broken,  and  the 
few  that  remain  are  wearing  smaller  and  weaker  every 
day." 

Stephens  was  spoken  of  contemptuously  as  "  one  of 
the  orbs  of  Union  Whiggery,"  his  influence  and  in 
cessant  activity,  as  well  as  that  of  Toombs,  being  em 
ployed  to  bring  about  the  election  of  the  Union  candi 
date  for  governor,  Howell  Cobb,  and  a  Union  legis 
lature.  The  Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger,  of  Sep 
tember  24,  1851,  refers  to  his  "  masterly  vindication  of 
the  Compromise  Measures  and  of  the  Georgia  plat 
form  "  in  a  recent  speech,  wherein  he  also  "paid  a 
glowing  tribute  to  the  Union"  as  "the  freest,  the  best 
and  most  glorious  government  on  earth."  The  result 
of  the  election  in  the  fall  of  1851  was  a  majority  of 
18,000  for  the  Unionists  over  the  Southern  Eights 
party  in  Georgia,  such  being  the  absorbing  interest  in 
the  single  issue  that  the  Democratic  and  Whig  parties 
temporarily  ceased  to  exist.  So  complete  was  the  vie- 


112  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

tory  that  the  Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger,  December 
3,  1851,  felt  at  liberty  to  scoff  at  the  defeated  secession 
ists  as  the  "Bull  Frog  Kegency,"  the  "  Coffin  Begi- 
ment,77  etc.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that 
the  secessionists  in  Georgia  and  the  other  Southern 
States  were  largely  disarmed  by  the  promise  of  the 
Compromise  Measures  to  redress  the  more  serious  of 
the  grievances  complained  of  by  the  South.  More 
over,  it  is  necessary  to  look  in  the  report  and  resolu 
tions  of  the  Georgia  convention  of  1850,  rather  than  in 
the  newspaper  utterances  of  either  side,  to  find  the 
genuine  and  sober  convictions  of  the  people  of  the 
State  as  a  whole. 

Henry  Clay  and  the  other  leaders  had  signed  and 
published  a  paper  drawn  up  by  Stephens  declaring 
their  intention  of  supporting  no  candidate  for  office 
who  would  not  espouse  the  principles  established  by 
the  Compromise,1  and  an  earnest  and  successful  effort 
was  made  to  have  these  principles  affirmed  by  the 
Georgia  State  convention,  called  in  December,  1850, 
for  the  purpose  of  deliberating  on  the  admission  of 
California.  Delegates  from  the  entire  State  were 
present  at  this  gathering,  Stephens  and  Toombs  repre 
senting  the  counties  of  Taliaferro  and  Wilkes,  re 
spectively.  The  report  of  this  convention  declared 
that  the  only  escape  from  the  peril  now  threatening 
the  Union  of  States  was  in  that  "  spirit  of  mutual  con 
cession  which  gave  birth  to  the  Constitution,  and 
which  in  times  past  had  adjusted  more  than  one  con 
troversy  threatening  dissolution.77  a  After  an  inquiry 
as  to  whether  Georgia,  u  consistent  with  her  honor, " 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  258. 

2  Pamphlet  copy  of  Report  of  Georgia  State  Convention  of  1850. 


SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1        113 

could  accept  the  general  scheme  of  pacification,  the 
advantages  of  which  were  discussed,  the  report  reads  : 
u  Georgia,  then,  will  abide  by  the  recent  action  of 
Congress,  in  hopeful  reliance  that  the  people  of  the 
non-slaveholding  States  will  yield  acquiescence  in  and 
faithful  adherence  to,  that  entire  action.  To  this 
course  she  is  impelled  by  an  earnest  desire  to  per 
petuate  the  American  Union,  and  to  restore  that  peace 
and  harmony  upon  which  its  value  to  herself,  to  her 
Confederates,  and  to  mankind,  essentially  depends. " 
The  report  expressed  the  fear,  however,  that  the  pros 
pects  of  permanent  peace  were  not  bright,  owing  to  the 
"  aggressive  spirit "  of  the  people  of  the  non-slave- 
holding  States,  to  whom  was  addressed  this  dignified 
and  solemn  appeal : 

"We  deem  this  an  appropriate  occasion  for  the 
sovereign  people  of  Georgia  to  commune  with  the  sov 
ereign  people  of  those  States.  We  would  address  to 
them  the  language  of  calm  and  frank  remonstrance, 
rather  than  of  defiance  and  menace.  We  would  re 
call  them  to  the  faithful  discharge  of  their  duty,  as  Con 
federates,  by  an  appeal  to  their  reason  and  their  moral 
sense.  .  .  .  Let  them  give  heed  to  the  warning 
voice  of  one  of  the  Old  Thirteen.  She  would  say  to 
them  :  '  Be  not  deceived,  the  destiny  of  the  Union  is 
in  your  hands.  Awake  from  your  fatal  dream  of 
security.  In  the  integrity  of  your  patriotism  and  the 
strength  of  your  united  action,  rise  up  against  this 
disorganizing  heresy.  Assemble  in  the  venerated  hall 
wherein  your  forefathers  and  our  forefathers  signed 
the  Constitution,  and  redeem  the  City  of  Brotherly 
Love  from  the  reproach  of  nourishing  its  foe.  Go  up 
to  Tammany  and  the  Tabernacle  and  expel  from  the 
National  Emporium  the  genius  of  discord.  Convene 
in  the  time-honored  Faneuil,  and  in  the  name  of  Wash- 


114  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

ington  exorcise  the  evil  spirit  from  the  Cradle  of 
American  liberty.  Everywhere,  East,  North,  West, 
decree  its  banishment  from  the  high  places  of  power. 
You  owe  the  country  this  lustration.  As  for  Georgia, 
her  choice  is  fraternity  and  Union  with  Constitutional 
rights — her  alternative,  self-preservation  by  all  the 

\  means  which  a  favoring  Providence  may  place  at  her 

\\disposal." 

The  report  also  cited  the  grievances  of  the  Southern 
States,  including  not  only  Northern  State  repudiation 
of  the  Constitutional  requirement  of  the  surrender  of 
fugitive  slaves  and  hostile  legislation  by  the  majority 
in  Congress,  but  the  "mischievous  intermeddling" 
with  the  negro,  who,  when  not  thus  tampered  with, 
"  is  contented  and  attached  to  his  master."  The  Con 
stitution  is  described  as  "  a  bond  of  political  union 
between  separate  .sovereignties."  Both  the  Northern 
and  Southern  States  entered  into  "this compact"  with 
the  understanding  that  slavery  was  to  be  protected, 
and  therefore  "Georgia  now  charges  upon  the  non- 
si  aveholding  States  infidelity  to  this  stipulation  in  the 
compact, ' '  instancing  t  i  the  existence  within  her  bor 
ders  of  organized  societies  avowedly  devoted  to  the 
annihilation  of  an  institution  inwrought  with  the 
framework  of  her  social  system."  The  report  also 
complains  of  a  new  school  of  political  ethics  l  i  affecting 
a  morality  purer  than  that  of  the  Apostle  Paul  who 
sent  back  the  absconding  Onesimus  to  his  master  ;  a 
philanthropy  more  sublimated  than  that  of  the  angel 
who,  meeting  the  fugitive  Hagar  in  the  wilderness, 
1  said  unto  her,  Eeturn  to  thy  mistress  and  submit  thy 
self  under  her  hand. '  Under  the  auspices  of  this  school 
new  doctrines  have  been  promulgated,  public  opinion 


SECESSION  AGITATION  OF  1850-1        115 

perverted  or  overawed,  the  arm  of  the  law  paralyzed, 
and  even  the  records  of  certain  States  dishonored  by 
enactments  prohibiting  that  to  be  done  which  the  Con 
stitution  commands." 

The  resolutions  adopted  in  this  historic  State  con 
vention  read  as  follows  : 

"  To  the  end  that  the  position  of  this  State  may  be 
clearly  apprehended  by  her  Confederates  of  the  South 
and  the  North,  and  that  she  may  be  blameless  of  all 
future  consequences, 

u  Beit  Resolved  by  the  People  of  Georgia  in  Convention 
assembled, 

i '  First,  That  we  hold  the  American  Union  secondary 
in  importance  only  to  the  rights  and  principles  it  was 
designed  to  perpetuate.  That  past  associations,  present 
fruition,  and  future  prospects  will  bind  us  to  it  so  long 
as  it  continues  to  be  the  safeguard  of  those  rights  and 
principles. 

* i  Second,  That  if  the  thirteen  original  parties  to  the 
compact,  bordering  the  Atlantic  in  a  narrow  belt,  while 
their  separate  interests  were  in  embryo,  their  peculiar 
tendencies  scarcely  developed,  their  Bevolutionary 
trials  and  triumphs  still  green  in  memory,  found  Union 
impossible  without  compromise,  the  thirty-one  of  this 
day  may  well  yield  somewhat  in  the  conflict  of  opinion 
and  policy,  to  preserve  that  Union  which  has  extended 
the  sway  of  republican  government  over  a  vast  wilder  - 
ness  to  another  ocean,  and  proportionally  advanced 
r  civilization  and  national  greatness. 

"  Third,  That  in  this  spirit  the  State  of  Georgia  has 
maturely  considered  the  action  of  Congress,  embracing 
a  series  of  measures  for  the  admission  of  California  into 
the  Union,  the  organization  of  territorial  governments 
for  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  the  establishment  of  a 
boundary  between  the  latter  and  the  State  of  Texas, 
the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  the  extradition  of  fugitive  slaves  and 


116  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

(connected  with  them)  the  rejection  of  propositions  to 
exclude  slavery  from  the  Mexican  Territories,  and  to 
abolish  it  in  the  District  of  Columbia  ;  and,  while  she 
does  not  wholly  approve,  will  abide  by  it  as  a  perma 
nent  adjustment  of  this  sectional  controversy. 

"  Fourth,  That  the  State  of  Georgia,  in  the  judgment 
of  this  Convention,  will  and  ought  to  resist,  even  (as  a 
last  resort)  to  the  disruption  of  every  tie  which  binds 
her  to  the  Union,  any  future  act  of  Congress  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  without  the  con 
sent  and  petition  of  the  slaveholders  thereof ;.  or  any 
act  abolishing  slavery  in  places  within  the  slavehold- 
ing  States,  purchased  by  the  United  States  for  the 
erection  of  forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  dockyards,  navy- 
yards,  and  other  like  purposes  ;  or  any  act  suppressing 
the  slave  trade  between  slaveholding  States  j  or  any 
refusal  to  admit  as  a  State  any  Territory  applying, 
because  of  the  existence  of  slavery  therein ;  or  any  act 
prohibiting  the  introduction  of  slaves  into  the  Terri 
tories  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  ;  or  any  act  repealing 
or  materially  modifying  the  laws  now  in  force  for  the 
recovery  of  fugitive  slaves. 

"  Fifth,  That  it  is  the  deliberate  opinion  of  this  Con 
vention  that  upon  the  faithful  execution  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill  by  the  proper  authorities  depends 
the  preservation  of  our  much -loved  Union. " 


CHAPTER  VII 

NULLIFICATION  AT  THE    NORTH 

THE  Constitutional  Union  party,  which  carried 
Georgia  against  secession  in  1851,  represented  a  very 
earnest  movement  to  preserve  the  Union  and  at  the 
same  time  to  maintain  intact  the  rights  guaranteed  the 
slaveholding  States  under  the  Constitution.  With  the 
Clay  Compromise  and  the  Georgia  Resolutions  as  its 
platform,  it  now  sought  to  perpetuate  itself.  Its  mem 
bers,  composed  largely  of  Whigs  and  partly  of  con 
servative  Democrats,  were  dissatisfied  with  both  the 
old  parties,  and  in  their  convention  of  April,  1852, 
they  resolved  to  stand  apart  and  support  no  candidate 
for  the  presidency  who  did  not  recognize  the  Com 
promise  Measures  as  a  final  settlement  of  the  questions 
involved.  So  decided  was  the  majority  against  send 
ing  delegates  to  the  Baltimore  convention  of  the  Whig 
party,  which  nominated  Winfield  T.  Scott,  that  no 
proposition  to  that  effect  was  introduced.  Stephens, 
Toombs  and  Hill  were  all  unwilling  to  support  Gen 
eral  Scott  because,  as  the  first  named  explained,  he 
avoided  endorsing  the  Compromise  Measures  and  be 
cause  he  ' '  suffered  his  name  to  be  held  up  as  a  candi 
date  for  the  presidency  in  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  by 
the  open  and  avowed  enemies'7  of  those  measures. 
The  standard  bearers  chosen  by  the  Constitutional 
Union  or  Independent  Whig  party  were  Daniel 
Webster,  of  Massachusetts,  and  Charles  J.  Jenkins, 


118  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

of  Georgia,  the  choice  of  Webster  being  no  doubt 
largely  the  result  of  his  speech  in  the  Senate  on 
March  7,  1850,  in  favor  of  the  Compromise. 

Reflecting  the  feeling  among  Southern  Whigs,  the 
Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger,  of  January  8,  1852, 
declared  that  the  regular  Whig  party  at  the  North  had 
"already  been  subsidized,"  and  that  General  Scott 
would  be  "  sustained  by  the  entire  Free  Soil  and 
Abolition  vote."  This  newspaper,  in  the  same  article, 
went  on  to  say  :  "We  have  strangled  disunion  ;  now 
let  us  throttle  Abolition  in  its  stronghold.  i  A  union 
of  the  South  for  the  sake  of  the  Union, J  would  be  a 
glorious  sight — a  sight  upon  which  the  spirit  of  Wash 
ington  and  the  fathers  of  the  Union  would  look  down 
with  ineffable  delight."  After  the  convention  of  the 
Independent  Whig  party,  in  the  same  newspaper,  of 
the  date  of  April  28,  1852,  appeared  this  interesting 
I  editorial  statement:  "The  organization  of  the  Consti- 
{  tutional  Union  party  is  the  beginning  of  a  great  South - 
;  ern  movement  on  the  true  basis.  Hitherto  the  basis 
of  such  movements  has  been  too  narrow.  The  sec 
tionalism  and  ultraism  which  have  hitherto  character 
ized  them,  have  defeated  them,  and  their  leaders  have 
become  the  representatives  of  sections  and  factions. 
They  have  alarmed  that  instinct  of  devotion  to  the 
Union  common  to  the  people  of  the  South.  Such 
has  been  the  history  of  the  Southern  movements  from 
1832  to  1850 ;  and  the  overwhelming  defeat  of  the 
•  Southern  Rights  party  is  the  last  and  most  convincing 
proof  that  devotion  to  the  Union  is  the  strongest  pas 
sion  of  the  people  of  the  South,  and  that  no  Southern 
movement  can  ever  succeed  which  contemplates  the 
I  possible  dissolution  of  the  Union." 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOETH         119 

We  cannot  doubt  that  this  would  have  proved  a  true 
prophecy,  if  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  could 
have  been  assured  that  their  Constitutional  rights 
would  remain  secure.  As  Lincoln  said  to  a  deputation 
of  freedmen  in  1862,  but  for  the  presence  of  the  negroes 
in  this  country  and  the  sectional  conflict  thereby 
brought  about  there  could  have  been  no  war.1  Even 
as  it  was,  had  Daniel  Webster  been  a  younger  man, 
had  he  lived,  and  had  he  been  able  to  unite  the  South 
ern  and  conservative  Northern  Whigs  in  his  support 
on  a  non-slavery-agitation  platform,  the  course  of  his 
tory,  for  some  years  at  least,  might  have  been  changed. 
But  Webster  died  on  October  24,  1852,  the  independ 
ent  Whigs  were  embarrassed,  and  their  movement 
checked.  Such  was  their  devotion  to  the  policy  pro 
posed,  however,  that  Stephens  and  others,  after  Web 
ster's  death,  actually  voted  the  ticket  bearing  his 
name.  The  struggle  to  maintain  this  conservative  or 
ganization  had  ceased  by  the  end  of  the  second  year  of 
its  inception,  and  Stephens,  Toombs,  and  other  South 
ern  Whigs  who  stood  for  slavery  and  the  Compromise 
as  well  as  for  the  Union,  found  themselves  without  a 
party.  The  Northern  Whigs  were  now  hearkening  to 
Seward's  "higher  law"  doctrine,  and  getting  ready 
to  go  into  the  new  Eepublican  party.  The  national 
Whig  organization  was  doomed.  The  Southern  Whigs 
soon  found  it  necessary  either  to  ally  themselves  with 
the  Democrats  on  the  common  ground  offered  by  the 
slavery  question  or  to  join  the  "Know  Nothing"  or 
American  party.  Disapproving  of  the  latter,  Stephens 
and  Toombs  finally  became  Democrats,  but  the  major- ', 
ity  of  their  associates  first  went  into  the  Know  Nothing 
1  Lincoln's  Speeches,  Vol.  II,  p.  222. 


120  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

party  which  opposed  the  easy  naturalization  of  foreign 
ers  and  insisted  on  the  election  of  native  citizens  to 
office.  The  electoral  vote  for  Pierce,  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  President  in  1852,  was  254,  while  that  for 
Scott,  the  national  Whig  candidate,  was  only  forty- two, 
showing  how  strong  was  the  influence  of  Clay  and  Web 
ster,  and  how  popular  the  Compromise,  which  the 
Democratic  platform  unequivocally  endorsed. 

Nevertheless  opposition  to  the  Compromise  Measures, 
and  especially  to  the  new  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  grew  rap 
idly  to  ward  vast  proportions  in  the  North,  the  movement 
being  greatly  stimulated  by  the  appearance  and  im 
mense  popular  success  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  which  one 
of  its  admirers  declared  would  "make  two  millions  of 
Abolitionists. "  The  author  wrote  of  conditions  in  the 
slave  States  from  hearsay,  the  local  color  was  facti 
tious  and  unreal,  the  negro  characters  were  idealized 
white  people  with  black  skins  ;  but  as  a  denunciation 
of  traffic  in  human  beings  the  book  still  impresses  its 
readers  as  one  of  unusual  power,  and  its  influence  at 
the  time  may  be  readily  understood.  Probably  no 
other  work  of  fiction  was  ever  so  important  a  factor  in 
a  revolution  of  public  opinion.  Already  the  Abolition 
ists  had  grown  bolder  in  their  demands  and  more  radical 
in  their  speech,  and  even  the  utterances  from  the  more 
moderate  element  were  such  as  to  alarm  the  South. 
Seward  declared  that  "  there  is  a  higher  law  than  the 
Constitution,"  and  that  "slavery  must  be  abolished." 
"  Bather  than  tolerate  national  slavery,"  said  the  New 
York  Tribune,  "let  the  Union  be  dissolved  at  once,  and 
j  then  the  sin  will  rest  where  it  belongs."  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  called  for  the  "  overthrow  "  of  a  Union 
which  was  "a  lie"  based  on  "  a  covenant  with  death 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOETH        121 

and  an  agreement  with  hell."  Charles  Sumner  put 
the  South  on  notice  that  "  we  are  bound  to  disobey" 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Horace  Greeley  said  i '  the  free 
and  slave  States  ought  to  be  separated.'7  Joshua  E. 
Giddings  looked  * l  forward  to  the  day  when  there  will 
be  a  servile  insurrection  in  the  South  ;  when  the  black 
man  .  .  .  shall  assert  his  freedom  and  wage  a  war 
of  extermination  against  his  master."  Wendell  Phil 
lips  found  the  "  merit  in  the  Eepublican  party  "  to  be  : 
"It  is  not  national ;  it  is  sectional.  It  is  the  North 
arrayed  against  the  South. J  J  And  he  exclaimed  :  *  *  All 
hail !  then,  disunion."  Discussing  the  cure  for  slavery, 
the  Independent  Democrat,  the  leading  Eepublican 
newspaper  of  New'  Hampshire,  said  that  i  i  men  must 
foment  insurrection  among  the  slaves."  Anson  P. 
Burlingame  declared  that  "the  times  demand  and  we 
must  have  an  anti-slavery  Constitution,  an  anti-slavery 
Bible  and  an  anti-slavery  God." 

While  the  more  radical  "  Liberty  Party"  of  Aboli 
tionists  demanded  the  suppression  of  slavery  in  the 
South  by  Congressional  decree,  the  an ti -slavery  party 
of  Garrison  called  upon  the  Northern  States  to  cut 
themselves  loose  from  the  Southern  by  seceding  from 
the  Union  and  repudiating  that  Union's  slavery-pro 
tecting  Constitution.-- Afc^k^-sescenteenth  annual  meet 
ing  of  the  latter  at  Syr^duse,  N.jY.,  May  7-10,  1851, 
with  G#££^pn  presittiagy-it-was  "resolved,  that  as  for 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  we  execrate  it,  we  spit  upon  it, 
we  trample  it  under  our  feet."  Other  resolutions  were 
passed  declaring  not  only  that  there  could  be  no  sur 
render  to  the  ' ;  demon  spirit  of  evasion,  procrastina 
tion  or  compromise,"  but  that  there  could  be  "no<; 
Union  with  slaveholders. "  H.  C.  Wright,  one  of  the 


122  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

speakers,  said  that  "  every  moment  the  Union  contin 
ues  as  it  is,  it  is  an  unmitigated  curse,"  and  that  "the 
Constitution  can  never  be  altered"  and  "slavery  can 
never  be  abolished ' '  on  American  soil l  i  while  the  Fed 
eral  Union  lasts.7'  Garrison  himself  said  :  "There  is 
no  power  under  the  name  of  Union  that  can  prevent  us 
from  withdrawing  to  clear  our  skirts  of  the  guilt  of 
slavery  at  the  South."1  "The  dissolution  of  the 
Union  [by  the  anti-slavery  forces]  is  only  a  question  of 
time,"  declared  H.  C.  Wright.  The  proceedings  show 
no  opinions  differing  from  those  cited.  In  the  strength 
of  this  all-pervading  passion  we  see  unquestionable  in 
dication  that  if  the  South  had  not  separated  from  the 
North,  the  North  would  eventually  either  have  sepa 
rated  from  the  South  or  followed  out  the  still  more 
revolutionary  course  of  repudiating  the  slavery-pro 
tecting  Constitution  and  suppressing  the  institution  in 
the  South  by  the  power  of  the  conqueror.  Three  years 
later  at  Framingham,  Mass. ,  on  July  4,  1854,  the  ven 
erated  Constitution,  so  long  regarded  as  a  product  of 
the  genius  of  the  fathers  of  the  republic,  was  burned  in 
the  sight  of  the  multitude,  and  Garrison  applied  the 
torch.  This  act  was  thus  described  by  Dr.  Moncure 
D.  Conway,  Garrison's  friend  and  associate,  at  the  one 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  Abolitionist  leader's 
birth,  December  10,  1905  : 

"He  held  up  the  Constitution,  struck  a  match  and 
burned  it  to  ashes.  Then  he  said  :  '  Let  all  the  people 

*See  report  of  this  convention  in  the  National  Anti-Slavery 
Standard,  issues  of  May  15  and  22,  1851.  In  the  issue  of  July  11, 
1850,  Samuel  J.  May  writes  that  ' '  when  we  have  overthrown  the 
present  Constitution  of  our  country  we  shall  labor  to  establish 
another  government  in  harmony  with  the  will  of  God  and  the  equal 
rights  of  man." 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOBTH        123 

say  *  *  amen. ' '  There  were  hisses  mingled  with  amens, 
but  there  stood  Garrison  beaming  upon  us,  not  excited 
in  face,  word  or  gesture.  It  was  the  most  picturesque 
thing  I  ever  saw."  1 

The  picturesqueness  extended  to  the  language  em 
ployed  on  that  memorable  occasion,  for  according 
to  Dr.  Conway,  Parker  Pillsbury,  "an  orthodox 
preacher,"  described  the  Democratic  party,  in  his  ad 
dress,  as  l  i  the  G d est  party  that  ever  ex 
isted  ";  and  "everybody  felt  like  getting  up  and 
saying,  t  Thank  you.'  "  Yet  Moncure  D.  Conway  was 
the  son  of  a  Virginia  slaveholder.  At  the  anniversary 
meeting  in  1905  this  Southern  Abolitionist,  aged 
eighty-three,  quoted  Garrison  as  saying  at  a  banquet 
in  Boston  on  May  5,  1853,  in  the  presence  of  a  large 
company  including  Senators  Sumner  and  Wilson, 
Auson  P.  Burlingame,  Cassius  M.  Clay,  Horace  Mann, 
and  Ealph  Waldo  Emerson:  "Gentlemen,  if  you 
have  been  so  fortunate  as  to  find  a  Union  worth  pre 
serving,  cling  to  it.  I  have  not  been  so  fortunate. 
You  will  pardon  me  if  I  am  somewhat  lacking  in 
loyalty  to  the  existing  Union. "  Presumably  he 
wanted  a  Union  based  on  something  better  than  the 
Constitution  he  consigned  to  the  flames  a  year  later. 
He  lived  to  see  a  new  Union,  and  a  newly  interpreted 
Constitution  with  amendments  thereto  adopted  in  the 
midst  of  revolution  ;  but  at  the  one-hundredth  anni 
versary  of  his  birth,  in  1905,  the  vexing  negro  question 
still  survived,  and  there  are  no  present  indications 
,  that  the  problem  will  be  satisfactorily  solved  even  at  the 
|  date  of  a  two-hundredth  anniversary  in  the  year  2005. 

1  Report  of  the  anniversary  meeting  in  New  York  Sun,  December 
11,  1905. 


124  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

After  the  death  of  Clay,  Webster  and  Calhoun,  the 
culmination  of  the  struggle,  as  witnessed  in  1861,  was 
inevitable.  The  new  Northern  leaders  such  as  Seward 
and  Simmer  were  less  willing  to  sustain  a  slavery-pro 
tecting  Constitution,  and  the  new  Southern  leaders 
such  as  Davis  and  Toonibs  were  less  determined  to 
preserve  a  Union  wherein  the  total  abolition  of  slavery 
was  now  plainly  threatened.  To  the  South  it&  pro 
tection  and  preservation  had  become  not  only  an  im 
perative  necessity  but  almost  a  religion.  The  North 
on  the  other  hand  made  opposition  to  it  a  matter  of 
conscience,  and  popular  hatred  of  the  new  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  enacted  under  the  Compromise  was  no  whit 
modified  by  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  the  law  was 
but  an  elaboration  of  this  clause  in  the  Constitution  : 

/ 

"  No  Person  held  to  Service  or  Labour  in  one  State, 
under  the  Laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall, 
in  consequence  of  any  Law  or  Regulation  therein,  be 
discharged  from  such  Service  or  Labour,  but  shall  be 
delivered  up  on  Claim  of  the  Party  to  whom  such 
Service  or  Labour  may  be  due."  l 

The  spectacular  burning  of  a  copy  of  the  Constitu 
tion  and  the  denunciation  of  that  venerated  instrument 
by  radical  leaders  as  "a  covenant  with  hell"  alarmed 

1  In  this  clause  "  service  "  was  at  first  written  "  servitude,"  and 
the  substitution  resulted  from  objections  raised.  Cassius  M.  Clay, 
the  Kentucky  Abolitionist,  once  gave  as  Madison's  explanation 
that  ' '  when  slavery  ceased  to  exist  in  this  land  they  did  not  wish 
the  memory  of  it  to  remain  on  record."  If  this  be  an  inaccurate 
quotation  from  memory,  Madison  at  any  rate  said,  in  a  letter  dis 
cussing  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  stopping  the  slave  trade 
after  1808,  that  "  some  of  the  States  .  .  .  had  scruples  against 
admitting  the  term  '  slaves  '  into  the  instrument,"  and  "hence  the 
descriptive  phrase,  '  migration  or  importation  of  persons. '  ' ' — Mad- 
iavn  Papers,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  149  (Lippincott  edition,  1865). 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NORTH        125 

the  people  of  the  South  less  than  the  revolutionary 
disposition  shown  by  the  Northern  States  as  States 
when  they  enacted  so-called  " personal  liberty"  laws 
boldly  nullifying  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  quoted 
above  as  well  as  the  national  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 
The  Constitution  decreed  that  fugitive  slaves  "  shall  be 
delivered  up.'7  The  Northern  States,  through  legisla 
tive  enactments,  virtually  responded  :  ' t  They  shall 
not  be  delivered  up."  In  1832  one  Southern  State 
nullified  the  tariff  law,fout  now  a  dozen  or  more  North 
ern  States  nullified  a  mandate  of  the  Constitution  itself. 
In  Massachusetts  the  law  provided  for  a  trial  by  jury 
of  alleged  fugitive  slaves,  and  that  the  latter  might 
have  the  services  of  any  attorney.  It  forbade  the  is 
suing  of  any  process  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  by 
any  legal  officer  in  the  State,  or  the  doing  of  "  any 
official  act  in  furtherance  of  the  execution  of  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law  of  1793  or  that  of  1850."  It  forbade 
the  use  of  any  prison  in  the  State  for  the  same  purpose. 
All  public  officers  were  forbidden  to  assist  in  the  arrest  of 
alleged  fugitive  slaves,  and  no  officer  in  the  State,  acting 
as  a  United  States  commissioner,  was  allowed  to  issue 
any  warrant  except  for  the  summoning  of  witnesses, 
nor  allowed  to  hear  or  try  any  cause  under  the  law.1 
Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Connecticut,  Ehode 
Island,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  other  States  passed 
similar  laws.  New  York,  New  Jersey  and  Pennsyl 
vania  passed  no  new  laws,  their  statute  books  already 
containing  acts  (such  as  those  referred  to  by  Calhoun 
in  his  speech  of  March  4,  1850),  which  they  deemed 
sufficient  for  the  purpose.  The  other  free  labor  States 

1B.    J     Leasing,   Cyclopedia  of   United  States  History,  Vol.  II, 
p.  1084. 


126  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

not  here  named  doubtless  refrained  from  new  enact 
ments  for  the  same  reason.  The  declaration  of  causes 
accompanying  South  Carolina's  ordinance  of  secession 
charged  that  "  the  States  of  Maine,  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Ehode  Island, 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Michigan, 
Wisconsin  and  Iowa  have  enacted  laws  which  either 
nullify  the  acts  of  Congress  or  render  useless  any  at 
tempt  to  execute  them,"  and  that  the  states  of  Ohio 
and  Iowa  had  even  refused  to  surrender  fugitive  slaves 
charged  with  murder. 

It  is  curiously  interesting  and  significant  that  the 
New  England  States,  which  received  comparatively  few 
fugitive  slaves,  were  more  radical  than  some  of  the 
States  along  the  border  which  received  many  ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  far  Southern  States  which  rarely 
lost  slaves  were  more  concerned  about  a  strict  law  than 
Kentucky  and  Maryland  which  lost  many.  Not  the 
'.  recapture  of  a  few  slaves  but  tolerance  of  slavery  was 
I  what  the  North  opposed;  not  the  loss  of  fugitive 
slaves,  but  the  uncompromising  spirit  of  interference 
looking  toward  the  final  abolition  of  slavery  on  Amer 
ican  soil  was  what  irritated  and  alarmed  the  South. 
But  if  the  legislatures  of  the  border  States  of  the  North 
were  less  eager  to  provide  Constitution-nullifying  en 
actments  than  the  New  England  States,  their  people 
were  as  ready  to  prevent  the  recapture  of  escaped  slaves. 
In  the  old  Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger  may  be  found 
the  following  dispatch  from  Baltimore  dated  Septem 
ber  12,  1851 : 

"  Ed  ward  Gorsuch  and  his  son  Dickinson  Gorsuch, 
two  highly  respected  residents  of  Baltimore  County, 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOKTH        127 

Md.,  pursued  several  slaves  owned  by  them  to  Lancas 
ter  County,  Pa.,  a  few  days  ago.  They  found  the 
fugitives  yesterday  in  a  small  house.  The  marshal 
accompanied  the  Messrs.  Gorsuch  into  the  house,  when 
the  negroes  retreated  up -stairs  armed  with  muskets. 
They  blew  a  horn  and  were  soon  joined  by  about  two 
hundred  negroes  and  white  persons  who  fired  upon  the 
pursuers,  instantly  killing  Gorsuch  and  his  son  and 
mortally  wounding  three  others.  The  marshal  com 
manded  the  white  persons  who  had  assembled  to  assist 
him  to  arrest  the  perpetrators  of  this  outrage.  They 
refused  to  lend  him  aid  and  the  fugitives  remain  un- 
captured.  There  is  immense  excitement  throughout 
the  county.  It  is  supposed  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States  must  interfere."  1 

Such  legal  enactments  and  such  occurrences  in  the 
Northern  States  were  sufficient  to  convince  every  reflect 
ing  mind  that  the  institution  of  slavery  would  ere  long 
be  imperiled  even  within  the  limits  of  the  Southern 
States  themselves.  (  The  growth  of  this  conviction  was 
accompanied  in  the  South  by  the  growth  of  the  desire  to 
cut  loose  from  a  confederation  wherein  the  compact  of 
union  was  violated.  And  when  the  decision  to  seek 
separate  political  existence  was  determined  on,  the  ob 
ject  was  not  merely  to  preserve  slavery  but  to  win  in 
dependence  and  protect  all  those  rights  which  the  orig 
inal  sovereign  States  had  reserved  to  themselves  when 
they  granted  limited  powers  to  the  central  government 
jointly  created  by  them.  This  was  the  prevailing 
Southern  view,  even  the  opponents  of  secession  admit 
ting  the  existence  of  serious  grievances. 

The  average  Southerner  saw  in  the  attitude  of  the 

1  Later  advices  announced  a  reward  of  $1,000  "to  convict  the 
guilty  parties  "  offered  by  the  governor  of  Pennsylvania. 


128  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Northern  people  merely  a  spirit  of  outrageous  and  un 
warrantable  interference.  In  the  North,  on  the  other 
t  lhand,  detestation  of  slavery  grew  apace,  and  the  orator 
'  'readily  thrilled  his  audience  with  expressions  of  desire 
and  determination  to  sweep  the  institution  from  the 
North  American  continent.  Outside  of  the  Southern 
and  border  States,  only  in  New  Jersey  and  Utah  were 
a  few  slaves  still  to  be  found.  A  quarter  of  a  century 
had  gone  by  since  the  State  of  New  York  had  abolished 
the  last  vestige  of  slavery  and  a  hundred  years  had 
passed  since  Benjamin  Franklin  "  made  many  a  ven 
ture  in  the  purchase  and  sale  of  negroes,"  1  partly  pro 
cured  in  New  England,  and  announced  to  the  readers 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  published  at  Philadelphia, 
that  by  enquiring  "  of  the  Printer  hereof"  they  might 
secure  "  a  Likely  Young  Negroe  Wench,"  "  a  Likely 
Mulatto  Girl,"  a  "  Likely  Young  Negroe  Fellow,"  a 
"  Lusty  Young  Negroe  Woman,"  etc.,  etc.  So  the 
people  of  the  North  accepted  the  exceptional  pictures 
in  Uncle  Tom  as  generally  typical,  shared  the  horror 
of  the  English  representative  in  this  country  of  the 
London  Spectator  at  the  rewards  offered  in  the  Balti 
more  newspapers  for  the  capture  of  yellow  as  well  as 
black  runaways,  and  could  see  no  better  side  to  an  in 
stitution  which,  although  deplorable  in  many  of  its 
phases,  had  at  least  been  an  industrial  training  school 
and  had  transformed  savages  into  semi-civilized  men. 
They  turned  a  deaf  ear  and  scoffed  when  Stephens,  in 
his  speech  on  the  Missouri  Compromise  on  December 
4,  1854,  declared  :  "  Take  them  in  Africa  ;  take  them 
anywhere  on  the  face  of  the  habitable  globe  ;  and  then 
take  them  in  the  Southern  States,  and  the  negro  popu- 
1  Paul  Leicester  Ford,  The  Many-Sided  Franklin,  pp.  319-321. 


: 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOKTH        129 

lation  of  the  South  are  better  off,  better  fed,  better 
clothed,  better  provided  for,  enjoy  more  happiness  and 
\  a  higher  civilization  than  the  same  race  has  ever  en- 
ypyed  anywhere  else  in  the  world.77 

This  was  the  appearance,  if  not  in  every  particular 
the  reality  ;  for  the  average  laughter-loving  negro,  be 
fore  the  days  of  education,  seemed  to  be  contented  in 
almost  any  situation.  Stephens  pointed  out  that  from 
1840  to  1850,  while  the  increase  of  the  free  negroes  in 
the  North  was  only  a  little  over  ten  per  cent.,  the  in 
crease  of  the  slaves  in  the  South  was  over  twenty-eight 
per  cent.  He  also  showed  more  crime  among  both 
races  in  the  North  than  in  the  South  in  proportion  to 
numbers.1 

Stephens  was  wise,  at  such  a  time,  not  to  go  on  to 
suggest  the  possibility  of  benefits  to  the  slaveholder 
other  than  the  financial,  as  some  modern  writers  have 
done.  "  Negro  slavery,"  says  Edward  Payson  Powell, 
of  New  York,2  "had,  however,  not  been  without  its 
ameliorating  contributions  to  American  history.  It 
had  secured  a  larger  range  of  social  sentiments,  and 
prevented  the  unchallenged  dominance  of  Puritan  con 
ceptions.  In  Virginia  it  aided  in  the  development  of 
a  class  devoted  to  statesmanship.  England  and  France 
with  their  immensely  older  civilization  had  no  minds 
to  surpass  Washington,  Jefferson,  Marshall,  Madison, 
Calhoun  and  Livingston.  There  was  a  hardness  about 

1  Dr.  W.  H.Wilcox  of  Cornell  University,  a  government  statisti 
cian,  in  an  address  before  the  American  Social  Science  Association  at 
Saratoga,  September  6, 1899,  showed  that  the  negroes  were  nearly 
three  times  as  criminal  in  the  Northeast  and  more  than  three  times 
as  criminal  in  the  Northwest,  in  proportion  to  nnmbers,  as  they 
Xi.  were  in  the  South  at  the  time  of  his  estimate. 

5  Nullification  and  Secession  in  the  United  States,  p.  370. 

j  T/  ,  r   in™""""u~— —- -'•'•^w*|i*"iw*"""11  '"'J^UW^IL  ifc^^m^"***" 


130  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

New  England  life  at  the  best  that  was  lacking  in  the 
South.  Hospitality  was  the  first  of  Southern  virtues  j 
economy  the  first  in  New  England.  Channing  wrote 
in  1799  :  1 1  blush  for  my  own  people  when  I  compare 
the  selfish  prudence  of  a  Yankee  with  the  generous 
confidence  of  a  Virginian. '  "  It  might  well  have  been 
added  that  in  addition  to  the  development  through 
leisure  for  culture  and  through  the  habit  of  command, 
there  was  an  ennobling  influence  from  the  sense  of 
responsibility  for  the  welfare  of  the  helpless,  as  illus 
trated  in  the  extensive  system  of  missionary  work 
\  among  the  plantation  slaves  directed  by  Bishop  Capers, 
\ofSouth  Carolina. 

•  But  no  such  gains  may  be  considered  legitimate  when 
I  gathered  at  the  cost  of  the  enslavement  of  a  race,  par 
ticularly  when  they  were  more  than  offset  by  the  injury 
I  done  by  the  institution  to  the  lower  class  of  Southern 
\whites.  Nor  could  the  mention  of  these  gains  be 
expected  to  do  more  than  excite  anger  during  the  stormy 
decade  of  1850-1860.  Such  was  the  fierce  disapproval 
among  the  Northern  people  at  last  that  they  could  not 
listen  with  patience  to  the  suggestion  of  manumission 
with  reimbursement  to  the  slave  owners,  although  this 
was  favored  by  Lincoln  to  the  end,  and  had  been  the 
just  plan  of  Mexico,  England,  and  other  governments, 
when  decreeing  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  and  al 
though  the  loss  to  the  Southern  slaveholders,  direct  and 
contingent,  was  so  vast  as  to  be  overwhelming.  The 
point  was  reached  where  it  was  desired  to  punish  the 
people  of  the  Southern  States  for  the  existence  of  an 
institution  for  which  all  sections  were  originally  respon 
sible,  which  the  South  of  1850-60  had  inherited  and 
could  not  be  expected  to  do  other  than  uphold,  fearing 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOKTH        131 

that  emancipation  would  mean  not  merely  incalculable 
pecuniary  disaster,  but  anarchy  and  possibly  a  reign 
of  terror.  The  North  was  no  less  unwilling  to  do  jus 
tice  to  the  South' s  reasonable  apprehensions  in  the 
midst  of  an  appalling  situation  than  was  the  South  to 
admit  the  strength  of  the  North's  moral  conviction 
,  against  slavery  in  any  form. 

""  The  intensity  of  feeling  indicated  above,  developed 
jafter  the  passage,  in  1854,  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill 
which  reopened  the  slavery  agitation  and  rendered  it 
more  violent  than  ever  before.  Part  of  the  area  ceded 
by  Louisiana,  not  covered  by  the  bills  providing  for 
Utah  and  New  Mexico,  had  now  been  settled  and  re 
quired  territorial  government.  Accordingly  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  introduced  a  bill  to  this  end  agreeable  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850,  speci 
fying  that  the  States  which  might  at  any  time  be  formed 
in  the  new  territory  should  leave  the  question  of  slavery  , 
to  be  decided  by  the  inhabitants  thereof  on  the  adop 
tion  of  their  constitutions.  This  was  called  t  i  popular 
sovereignty  ' '  by  the  advocates  of  the  bill  and  i  i  squat- 
ter  jsoy  ereignty ' J  by  its  opponents — the  latter  term 
having  first  been  used  by  CalhounJ.n^  1848,  in  de 
scribing  the  adventurers  who  had  gone  to  California  as 
mere  t  i  squatters ' '  on  the  public  domain,  and  contend 
ing  that  to  recognize  their  right  to  set  up  a  government 
to  suit  themselves  was  to  assert  the  doctrine  of  * l  squat 
ter  sovereignty. ' '  Those  who  stood  with  Calhoun  then 
now  took  a  different  view.  On  the  other  hand,  those 
who  had  then  contended  that  California  had  a  right  to 
decide  the  question  of  slavery  for  herself,  even  in  the 
section  below  the  line  of  36°  30'— she  having  declared 
against  it — now,  with  Seward  and  Sumner  as  their 


132  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

leaders,  objected  to  popular  sovereignty  for  Kansas  and 
Nebraska,  ignored  the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850, 
and  went  back  to  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  as 
the  "solemn  compact"  and  binding  law. 

This  would  have  been  consistent  if  there  had  been  no 
Wilmot  Proviso,  no  determined  effort  to  go  south  of 
the  36°  30'  line  and  shut  slavery  out  of  all  the  territory 
taken  from  Mexico  ;  it  would  have  been  reasonable  if 
there  had  been  no  Compromise  of  1850  providing  the 
same  thing  as  popular  sovereignty  for  the  Mexican  ter 
ritories.  But  under  the  circumstances  the  complaint 
that  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  abrogated  the  Missouri 
Compromise  was  readily  answered  by  the  reminder 
that  the  old  " compact"  was  already  abrogated.  It 
was  abrogated,  though  the  fact  was  not  officially  stated, 
when  the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850  were  adopted 
through  the  influence  of  Clay  and  Webster,  one  provis 
ion  securing  the  admission  of  California  with  an  anti- 
slavery  Constitution,  although  part  of  that  State  lay 
south  of  the  36°  30'  dividing  line.  That  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  was  in  general  conformity  with  the  Com 
promise  of  1850,  and  that  the  influence  of  Clay  and 
Webster  was  still  felt,  are  evident  from  the  fact  that  this 
strife-breeding  enactment  of  1854  was  "  consummated 
;  by  the  cooperation  of  the  North,  "  was  ''originated  by 
a  senator  from  a  free  State,'7  was  "passed  by  a 
Congress  containing  in  each  branch  a  majority  of  mem 
bers  from  the  free  States, ' ?  and  ' l  was  sanctioned  by 
the  approval  of  a  free  State  President."  '  Neverthe 
less  it  was  even  more  of  a  victory  for  the  South  than 
was  the  Compromise  of  1850,  and  the  "furious  indig- 

1  Baker's  Memoir  of  Wm.  H.  Seward,  pp.  24-27  (Vol.  IV  of  Sew- 
ard's  Works). 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOETH        133 

nation"  which  "swept  the  North"  may  be  readily  ac 
counted  for.  Yet  if  there  was  to  be  any  compromise 
at  all  between  the  sections  in  regard  to  the  introduction 
of  slavery  into  new  territories,  there  could  be  no  more 
equitable  arrangement  and  none  more  in  keeping  with 
American  institutions  than  that  described  by  the  term 
"  popular  sovereignty." 

It  will  be  interesting  to  note  at  this  point  Stephens' s 
dissection  of  the  claim  that  the  North  had  faithfully 
abided  by  the  "  sacred  compact"  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  for  thirty  years.  In  his  speech  in  the  House, 
February  17,  1854,  he  declared  in  the  first  place  that 
the  South  was  "  in  no  sense  a  party  to  this  Congressional 
restriction  north  of  36°  30'  except  as  a  vanquished 
party,  being  outvoted  on  the  direct  question  ;  protest 
ing  against  it  with  all  her  might  and  power."  A  ma 
jority  at  the  South  "  always  held  that  clause  of  the 
Missouri  act  to  be  unconstitutional "  ;  yet  "  for  the  sake 
of  peace  and  harmony  the  South  did  patriotically  yield, 
and  was  willing  for  all  time  to  come  to  abide  by  it," 
until  the  agreement  was  "  shamelessly  disregarded  by 
Congress,"  and  it  was  evident  that  the  North  "refused 
to  abide  by  her  own  bargain." 

He  cited  numerous  instances  in  support  of  this 
charge.  When  the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  State 
came  up  in  1821  "the  whole  South  was  for  letting  her 
be  admitted  and  the  entire  North  nearly  was  against 
it,"  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Missouri's  constitu 
tion  was  in  agreement  with  the  "  canonized"  Compro 
mise.  In  1836  in  the  vote  for  the  admission  of  Ar 
kansas  with  a  constitution  tolerating  slavery,  i  t  though 
she  was  south  of  36°  30',  there  were  fifty-two  names 
under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Adams  in  the  negative — every 


134  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

one  of  them,  I  believe,  from  the  North. "  In  the  case 
of  Texas,  of  the  125  Northern  votes  in  the  House  fifty  - 
one  were  for  the  annexation  with  this  line  (36°  30')  in  it, 
while  there  were  seventy-four  who  refused  to  give  it 
their  sanction.  Concerning  the  vote  in  the  case  of 
Oregon  in  1847  Stephens  said  : 

i  i  From  the  votes  of  the  House  upon  what  was  well 
known  as  the  '  Wilmot  Proviso,'  the  South  had  just 
reasons  to  apprehend  that  it  was  the  fixed  determina 
tion  of  a  majority  of  the  North  to  disregard  entirely 
what  is  now  called  the  'sacred  covenant  of  1820.' 
When,  therefore,  the  bill  to  organize  a  territorial 
government  for  Oregon  came  up  in  this  House  on  the 
15th  of  January,  1847,  Mr.  Burt,  of  South  Carolina,  to 
take  the  sense  of  the  North  directly  upon  the  question 
of  abiding  by  this  line  of  36°  30',  moved  as  an  amend 
ment  to  that  clause  in  the  bill  which  excluded  slavery 
forever  from  that  territory,  these  words, — 'inasmuch 
as  the  whole  of  said  territory  lies  north  of  36°  30'  north 
latitude,  known  as  the  line  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise.'  The  object  of  this  amendment  was  to  put 
a  direct  test  to  the  North,  whether  they  intended  to  rec 
ognize  the  principle  upon  which  the  controversy  on 
the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  territories  was  disposed  of 
in  1820  or  not.  Sir,  the  North  understood  the  ques 
tion  fully  and  clearly,  and  they  met  it  promptly,— 
their  response  was  that  they  did  not.  Here  is  the  vote 
upon  this  question :  there  were  in  this  House  then  eighty- 
two  votes  for  Mr.  Burt' s  amendment  and  113  against  it. 
Of  those  noes  every  man  was  from  the  North.  Every 
Southern  man  in  the  House  voted  for  it." 

In  another  bill  to  establish  territorial  government 
for  Oregon  in  1848  the  Senate  put  in  an  amendment 
approving  the  36°  30'  line  and  extending  it  to  the  Pa 
cific  Ocean,  but  in  the  House  there  were  one  hundred 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOKTH        135 

and  twenty -one  votes  against  and  only  eighty- two  for 
this  amendment,  the  yeas  being  all  Southern  votes  ex 
cept  four.  Eeferring  to  the  conflict  over  the  terri 
tories  acquired  from  Mexico  and  the  determined  effort 
to  shut  slavery  out  of  the  whole,  even  south  of  36°  30', 
Stephens  went  on  to  say  : 

"The  strife  became  so  embittered  and  fierce  that 
legislation  was  paralyzed.  The  South  again  repeatedly 
proposed  a  settlement  upon  the  Missouri  line.  The 
proposition  was  made  in  this  House,  on  the  part  of  the 
South,  for  the  last  time  on  the  13th  day  of  June,  1850. 
This  proposition  was  rejected  in  the  com 
mittee  of  the  whole — ayes  seventy -eight,  noes  eighty- 
nine.  It  was  the  last  time,  sir,  it  was  ever  offered. 
When  the  North  had  again  and  again  refused  to  abide 
by  it,  the  South  was  thrown  back  upon  her  original 
rights  under  the  Constitution.  Her  next  position  was 
that  territorial  restriction  by  Congress  should  be  totally 
abandoned,  not  only  south  of  36°  30'  but  north  of  that 
line  also.  Upon  this  ground  she  planted  herself  on 
the  15th  day  of  June,  1850.  It  was  on  that  day  I  put 
the  question  directly  to  a  distinguished  gentleman  then 
here  from  Ohio  [Mr.  Vinton]  whether  he  would  vote 
for  the  admission  of  any  slave  State  into  the  Union  and 
he  refused  to  say  that  he  would.  The  determination  as 
manifested  by  the  majority  of  the  North  was  to  apply 
legislative  restriction  over  the  whole  of  the  common 
territory,  in  open  and  shameless  disregard  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  so-called  Missouri  Compromise,  notwith 
standing  the  gentleman  from  Vermont  says  that  it  has 
been  adhered  to  and  held  inviolate  for  thirty  years. 
.  .  .  It  was  then  that  the  South  planted  herself  on  her 
original  ground.  The  whole  question  of  slavery  was  to 
be  left  to  the  determination  of  the  people  of  the  terri 
tories,  whether  north  or  south  of  36°  30'.  The  ques 
tion  was  to  be  taken  out  of  Congress  where  it  had  been 
improperly  thrust  from  the  beginning,  and  to  be  left 


136  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

to  the  people  concerned  in  the  matter  to  be  decided 
for  themselves.  This,  I  say,  was  the  position  origin 
ally  held  by  the  South  when  the  Missouri  restriction 
was  at  first  proposed.  The  principle  upon  which  that 
position  rests,  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  all  our  re 
publican  institutions  ;  it  is  that  the  citizens  of  every 
distinct  community  or  State  should  have  the  right  to 
govern  themselves  in  their  domestic  matters  as  they 
please,  and  that  they  should  be  free  from  intermed 
dling  restrictions  and  arbitrary  dictation  on  such 
matters."  * 

To  this  was  added  the  very  pointed  argument, 
which  no  doubt  helped  to  pass  the  bill,  that  under  the 
popular  sovereignty  plan  for  the  territories  the  free 
States  would  have  an  immense  advantage  over  the  slave 
States,  owing  to  the  more  than  double  population  of  the 
former  and  consequently  their  greater  emigration  to 
the  territories,  to  say  nothing  of  the  foreign  immi 
grants  already  flooding  into  the  Northwest.  Free 
labor  was  likely  to  outnumber  slave  labor  advocates 
in  the  territories  two  to  one  and  their  votes  could 
promptly  exclude  slavery.  Why  was  the  North  afraid 
to  trust  its  own  people  on  this  question  f 

How  actively  and  ably  Stephens  was  engaged  in 
bringing  about  the  passage  of  the  Kansas- Nebraska 
bill,  in  addition  to  his  speech  in  its  favor,  is  suggested 
by  the  statement  of  Baker  in  his  memoir  of  Seward 
that  on  the  22d  of  May  "  after  a  most  exciting  contest 
lasting  nearly  two  months,  in  committee  of  the  whole, 
Mr.  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  by  an  extra 
ordinary  stratagem  in  parliamentary  tactics,  succeeded 
in  closing  the  debate  and  bringing  the  bill  to  a  vote  in 
the  House,  where  it  finally  passed  before  adjournment 

1  Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  pp.  394-415. 


NULLIFICATION  AT  THE  NOKTH        137 

by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  thirteen  to  one  hundred. " 
Eeturned  to  the  'Senate  on  account  of  amendments,  it 
passed  that  body  again  by  a  vote  of  thirty-five  to 
thirteen. 

The  voting  figures  for  this  and  the  other  contests  of 
the  period  show  that  the  House  responded  to  the 
popular  impulse  at  the  North  much  more  fully  than 
the  Senate,  the  latter,  as  usual,  exhibiting  greater  con 
servatism  and  deference  to  the  requirements  of  a 
slavery -protecting  Constitution. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

STEPHENS  RETIRES  FROM  CONGRESS 

THE  presidential  election  of  1856  showed  that  the 
Whig  party  was  dead.  There  were  voters  who  still 
called  themselves  by  that  name,  but  they  were  few  and 
they  did  no  more  than  adopt  the  "  Know  Nothing" 
candidates.  This  party  secured  only  eight  electoral 
votes.  The  new  and  rapidly  growing  Eepublicau 
party  claimed  114,  and  the  Democratic  party  174,  the 
latter  placing  its  candidate,  James  Buchanan,  in  the 
Executive  Mansion.  The  important  events  during  the 
administration  of  Buchanan  were,  the  continuing 
struggle  in  Kansas  ;  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
in  1857  that  as  Dred  Scott  "  was  a  slave  when  taken 
into  Illinois  by  his  owner,  and  was  there  held  as  such, 
and  brought  back  in  that  character,  his  status  as  free 
or  slave  depended  on  the  laws  of  Missouri,  and  not  of 
Illinois,"  and  that  he  therefore  was  still  a  slave  ;  the 
Mormon  rebellion  in  Utah,  in  1857-59  ;  the  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  debates  in  Illinois  in  1858  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  ;  the  admission  of  Oregon  in  1859  with  a  consti 
tution  excluding  free  negroes  from  that  State  ;  John 
Brown's  attack  in  1859  on  the  national  armory  at 
Harper's  Ferry — (described  in  the  Senate's  report  as 
"  an  act  of  lawless  ruffians  ")— with  a  view  to  arm  the 
negroes  of  Virginia  and  incite  them  to  insurrection  ; 
and  finally,  the  secession  of  eleven  Southern  States 
following  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


STEPHENS  EETIEES  FEOM  CONGBESS    139 

It  is  not  within  the  province  of  this  volume  to  con 
sider  any  of  these  events  in  detail,  except  the  last  men 
tioned,  the  subject  calling  for  attention  being  the 
activities  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  during  this  period. 
One  of  his  speeches  in  Congress  that  must  be  referred 
to  was  delivered  on  January  15,  1855.  It  was  a  reply 
to  Mr.  Campbell,  of  Ohio,  comparing  the  prosperity 
of  the  latter' s  State  with  that  of  Georgia,  and  showing 
the  advantage  of  the  slave  labor  over  the  free  labor 
State  on  the  material  side.  This  speech  caused  a  sen 
sation.  It  is  extremely  plausible.  There  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  the  accuracy  of  such  statistics  as  were  ob 
tainable  for  presentation,  and  Stephens' s  honesty  is 
unquestionable  ;  but,  as  indicating  that  the  South  was 
more  generally  prosperous  under  slave  labor  than  the 
North  was  under  free  labor,  it  is  the  reverse  of  con 
vincing.  In  the  light  of  all  that  is  now  known,  the 
intelligent  Southern  reader  is  more  impressed  by  the 
showing  presented  in  1859  by  Hinton  Eowan  Helper 
in  his  book,  The  Impending  Crisis,  radical  and  of 
doubtful  accuracy  as  are  some  of  this  Southern  Aboli 
tionist's  statements.  Son  of  a  slaveholder  though  he 
was,  Helper  saw  clearly  that  Southern  material  pros 
perity  was  one-sided,  extending  little  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  comparatively  small  class  of  large  planters  and 
slave  owners.  The  latter  he  estimated  at  347,000,  and 
the  number  in  1860  had  not  increased  beyond  400,000 
in  a  population  of  about  9,000,000,  a  little  over 
5,000,000  of  whom  were  white.  The  prosperity  of  the 
South  under  slavery  was  the  prosperity  of  a  dominat 
ing  minority,  leaving  a  white  majority  that  was  injured 
even  on  the  material  side  by  the  institution.  It  was  a 
deceptive  prosperity,  not  wholly  unlike  that  of  the 


140  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

present  in  the  country  as  a  whole,  which  is  too  largely 
confined  to  another  dominating  minority  of  capitalists. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  give  Helper's  statistics  which 
proved  for  the  South  in  general  the  contrary  of  what 
Stephens' s  statistics  proved  for  Georgia.  That  a  free 
labor  section  devoted  to  manufacturing  and  intensive 
farming  was  richer  and  more  generally  prosperous 
than  a  slave  labor  section  depending  solely  on  agri 
culture  admits  of  no  argument.  It  is  equally  self-evi 
dent  that  the  Southern  white  man  without  the  training 
or  ability  necessary  for  the  professions,  or  without  the 
capital  wherewith  to  buy  slaves  and  land,  was  con 
fronted,  in  the  matter  of  slave  labor,  with  a  withering 
competition,  which,  in  the  worst  circumstances,  tended 
to  reduce  him  to  the  lowest  level  ever  reached  by  any 
representatives  of  the  white  race  on  the  American 
continent.  According  to  Helper,  white  laborers  were 
paid  even  less  than  black  when  the  latter  were  hired 
from  their  owners,  and  wages  in  general  were  a  hun 
dred  per  cent,  lower  than  in  the  free  States.  In  1856 
he  found  in  North  Carolina  "  sober,  energetic  white 
men  between  twenty  and  forty  years  of  age  engaged  in 
agricultural  pursuits  at  a  salary  of  seven  dollars  per 
month  including  board  only,"  while  "  negro  men  slaves 
who  performed  little  more  than  half  the  amount  of 
labor,  and  who  were  exceedingly  sluggish,  awkward 
and  careless  in  all  their  movements,  were  hired  out  on 
adjoining  farms  at  an  average  of  about  ten  dollars  a 
month,  including  board,  clothing  and  medical  attend 
ance."  The  same  difference  was  observed  in  the 
mechanical  trades,  and  in  the  case  of  the  women  of  the 
two  races  in  domestic  service  there  was  an  even  greater 
premium  placed  on  the  inferior  labor  of  4 1  negro 


STEPHENS  EETIEES  FEOM  CONGEESS    141 

wenches, "  however  "  ungraceful,  stupid  and  filthy " 
they  might  be.  The  explanation  given  for  these  extra 
ordinary  conditions  was  that  "the  fiat  of  the  [slave] 
oligarchy  has  made  it  fashionable  to  'have  negroes 
around/  and  there  are  many  non-slaveholding  white 
sycophants  who,  in  order  to  retain  on  their  premises  a 
hired  slave  whom  they  falsely  imagine  secures  to  them 
not  only  the  appearance  of  wealth,  but  also  a  position 
of  high  social  standing  in  the  community,  keep  them 
selves  in  perpetual  strait."  l  The  proportion  of  non- 
slaveholders  to  slaveholders,  according  to  this  au 
thority,  was  "six  to  one" — the  disparity  in  the  South 
as  a  whole  was  probably  not  so  great — yet  the  domi 
nating  minority  controlled  all  legislation.  Helper,  who 
clearly  saw,  but  exaggerated  the  truth,  groaned  over 
the  "little  the  'poor  white  trash,'  the  majority  of  the 
Southern  people, ' '  knew  of  public  measures  or  the  real 
conditions  of  the  country. 

Stephens  would  have  done  well  to  look  into  the 
census  reports  and  ask  himself  why  it  was  that  in  1790 
Virginia  had  more  than  twice  the  population  of  New 
York,  while  sixty  years  later  New  York  had  more 
than  twice  the  population  of  Virginia,  and  had  also 
forged  ahead  in  all  industrial  lines.  Similar  was  the 
story  of  the  two  sections  as  a  whole  during  that  period, 
their  population  being  about  equal  in  1790  and  that  of 
the  North  being  more  than  double  that  of  the  South 
sixty  years  later.  There  is  no  reasonable  explanation 
other  than  that  the  South  was  cursed  by  an  institution 
which  paralyzed  its  industries  at  their  birth,  holding 
the  entire  section  to  agriculture  alone,  preventing  im 
migration,  and  inducing  a  condition  of  arrested  devel- 

1  Helper's  Impending  Crisis,  pp.  205-6. 


142  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

opment.  "  Commerce,"  Governor  "Wise  frankly  told 
the  Virginians  a  year  or  two  before  the  war  of  seces 
sion,  "  has  long  since  spread  her  sails  and  sailed  away 
from  you.  You  have  not  as  yet  dug  more  than  coal 
enough  to  warm  yourselves  at  your  own  hearths  ;  you 
have  set  no  tilt-hammer  of  Vulcan  to  strike  blows 
worthy  of  gods  in  your  own  foundries ;  you  have  not 
yet  spun  more  than  coarse  cotton  enough  in  the  way 
of  manufacture  to  clothe  your  own  slaves.  You  have  no 
commerce,  no  mining,  no  manufactures.  You  have 
relied  alone  on  the  single  power  of  agriculture,  and 
such  agriculture !  Your  sedge  patches  outshine  the  sun. 
Your  inattention  to  your  only  source  of  wealth  has 
seared  the  very  bosom  of  mother  earth.  Instead  of 
having  to  feed  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills,  you  have 
had  to  chase  the  stump -tailed  steer  through  the  sedge 
patches  to  procure  a  tough  beefsteak." 

The  presence  of  the  negro  as  a  slave  cursed  the  South 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  j  the 
presence  of  the  negro  as  a  freeman  was  scarcely  less  a 
curse  to  the  South  during  the  latter  half  of  that  cen 
tury,  he  being  still  an  effectual  bar  to  immigration. 
White  laboring  men  from  Europe  and  the  populous 
Northern  States  have  had  no  mind  to  face  the  competi 
tion  which  has  crushed  the  Southern  i  i  poor  whites ' J 
for  a  century.  Eeflecting  Southern  men  of  to-day  are 
filled  with  sadness  as  they  read  their  grandsires' 
eulogia  of  an  institution  which  wrought  the  ruin  of 
the  fairest  portion  of  the  United  States.  Opposition 
to  slavery  on  moral  grounds  was  not  the  strongest 
motive  that  moved  the  North,  whose  wiser  leaders  saw 
the  peril  and  wished  to  confine  it  within  bounds, 
|  saving  the  territories  for  free  labor  and  white  men. 


STEPHENS  KETIEES  FROM  CONGRESS    143 

"  The  white  man  needs  this  continent,'*  said  Seward 
in  the  Senate  on  March  3,  1858,  and  Lincoln,  debating 
with  Douglas,  declared  that  the  territories  should  be 
"  reserved  for  free  white  people,"  and  become  an  out 
let  for  the  surplus  population  "  where  white  men  can 
find  a  home — a  spot  where  they  can  better  their  condi 
tion."  Lincoln  spoke  for  the  plain  people  of  the 
North  who  were  anti-negro  rather  than  anti-slavery  in 
their  attitude,  and  who  are  anti-negro  to  this  day, 
resolutely  shutting  the  blacks  out  of  their  trade  unions. 
A  race,  whether  Negro  or  Chinese,  whose  standard  of 
comfort  is  pitched  on  a  lower  scale  and  who  can  there 
fore  labor  for  lower  wages,  offers  competition  which 
white  men  will  avoid  if  possible.  Lincoln  spoke  for 
the  same  plain  people,  who  wanted  no  competition  with 
either  the  slave  or  the  free  negro,  when,  in  addressing 
a  deputation  of  that  race  in  1862  on  the  subject  of  the 
colonization  of  the  freedmen  in  some  foreign  territory, 
he  said  :  ' '  But  for  your  race  among  us  there  could 
not  be  war,  although  many  men  engaged  on  either  side 
do  not  care  for  you  one  way  or  the  other.  .  .  .  It  is 
better  for  us  both  therefore  to  be  separated."  1 

We  turn  with  relief  from  Alexander  H.  Stephens' s 
deluded  utterances  on  this  subject  to  his  other  deliver 
ances  at  this  period  that  appeal  to  a  reflecting  mind. 
His  speech  against  the  Know  Nothing  movement  de 
livered  at  Augusta,  Ga,,  in  1855,  was  logical,  sound 
and  truly  American.  He  showed  clearly  that  the  pro 
posed  proscription  of  foreign  immigrants  and  native 
Catholics  was  contrary  to  every  principle  established 
through  the  revolution  of  1776.  He  had  previously 
decided  not  to  be  a  candidate  for  Congress  on  account 

1  Lincoln's  Speeches,  Vol.  II,  p.  154. 


144  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

of  ill  health,  but  hearing  that  his  decision  was  attrib 
uted  to  the  fact  that  the  majority  in  his  district  were 
Know  Nothings,  accompanied  by  the  insinuation  that 
he  feared  defeat,  he  reconsidered  and  went  into  the 
campaign  with  great  energy.  It  was  in  this  Augusta 
speech  that,  after  referring  to  these  rumors,  he  made 

,  the  by  no  means  idle  boast :  "  I  am  afraid  of  nothing 
on  the  earth,  or  above  the  earth,  or  under  the  earth — 

\  except  to  do  wrong.  The  path  of  duty  I  shall  ever  en 
deavor  to  travel,  fearing  no  evil  and  dreading  no 
consequences.  I  would  rather  be  defeated  in  a  good 
cause  than  triumph  in  a  bad  one.  ...  I  am  again 
a  candidate  for  Congress  from  this  district.  My  name 
is  hereby  presented  — not  by  any  convention  but  by 
myself.  Do  with  it  as  each  of  you  may  think 
proper. " 

One  of  the  most  exciting  campaigns  ever  known  in 

/  Georgia  followed.  In  spite  of  his  feeble  health, 
Stephens  rode  and  drove  long  distances  in  all  weathers 
to  meet  his  engagements  and  spoke  at  many  points, 
denouncing  Know-Nothingism  in  unmeasured  terms. 
Being  asked  if  his  denunciations  were  not  too  severe, 
he  answered  :  <  i  No  ;  it  is  a  disease,  not  for  plasters, 
but  for  the  knife."  The  hold  of  the  new  un-American 
"American"  party  was  strong,  but  the  people  ad 
mired  and  were  readily  swayed  by  Stephens.  Even 
those  who  were  not  convinced  by  him  probably  agreed 
with  the  Georgia  Journal  and  Messenger,  which  news 
paper,  after  criticizing  his  position,  expressed  the 
hope  that  "  no  complication  of  circumstances,  or  con 
flict  of  opinions  among  us,  may  deprive  us  of  the  benefit 
of  his  eminent  services  in  the  House  of  Eepresenta- 
tives."  He  was  elected  by  the  greatest  majority  ever 


STEPHENS  BETIEES  FEOM  CONGEESS    145 

given  him  and  Know-Nothingism  received  a  stagger 
ing  blow  from  which  it  never  recovered. 

In  his  spirited  debate  with  Eepresentative  Zollicof- 
fer  in  January,  1856,  Stephens  reasserted  the  i  i  popu 
lar  sovereignty"  idea,  which  was  originally  held  by 
the  South  and  which  triumphed  in  the  passage  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  "  I  am,"  he  said,  "  for  main 
taining  the  steadfastness  of  the  territorial  bills  of  1850 
—the  principle  of  leaving  the  people  of  the  terri 
tories,  without  Congressional  restriction,  to  settle  this 
question  for  themselves,  and  to  come  into  the  Union, 
when  admitted  as  States,  either  with  or  without 
slavery  as  they  may  determine.  This  principle  was 
recognized  and  established  after  the  severest  sectional 
struggle  this  country  has  ever  witnessed,  and  after  the 
old  idea,  whether  right  or  wrong  in  itself,  whether 
just  or  unjust,  whether  constitutional  or  unconstitu 
tional,  of  dividing  the  territories  between  the  sections 
(by  the  36°  30'  line)  was  entirely  abandoned  and  repu 
diated  by  the  party  that  at  first  forced  it  as  an  alter 
native  upon  the  other." 

In  his  speech  on  June  26,  1856,  on  the  proposal  to 
admit  Kansas  as  a  State  under  the  Topeka  constitution 
of  the  free-staters,  who  had  repudiated  the  previous 
pro-slavery  legislature  and  who  later  were  in  turn 
repudiated  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  and 
their  rival  legislature  dispersed  by  national  troops, 
Stephens  delivered  an  interesting  defense  of  slavery, 
not  only  on  constitutional  and  legal  grounds,  but  as 
based  on  moral  and  Divine  law.  He  quoted  Genesis 
17  : 13, /"  He  that  is  born  in  thy  house  and  he  that  is 
boughtrwith  thy  money  must  needs  be  circumcised," 
in  order  to  show  that  Abraham  was  "  not  only  a  slave- 


146  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

holder  but  a  slave  dealer.  "  '  He  cited  other  similar 
passages  from  the  Old  Testament,  making  much  of 
those  declaring  that  the  slaves  "forever"  of  the  Is 
raelites  should  "  be  of  the  heathen  that  are  round 
about"  and  providing,  on  the  contrary,  that  "over 
your  brethren  .  .  .  ye  shall  not  rule  with  rigor  " 
(Leviticus  25  :  44,  45,  46).  "Our  Southern  system," 
he  said,  "is  in  strict  conformity  with  this  injunction. 
Men  of  our  own  blood  and  our  own  race,  wherever 
born,  or  from  whatever  clime  they  come,  are  free  and 
equal.  We  have  no  castes  or  classes  among  white 


TJns  statement  shows  that,  like  all  advocates  of  the 
slavery  institution  as  a  positive  good,  he  overlooked 
the  injury  done  the  non-slaveholding  and  laboring 
class  of  whites  who  too  often  could  not  rise  from  the 
low  level  to  which  they  had  been  reduced  by  the  with 
ering  competition  of  slave  labor.  He  said  there  were 
"no  castes"  in  the  South,  yet  there  was  a  wide  gulf 
between  the  dominating  slaveholding  minority  and  the 
lowest  class  of  "  poor  white  trash,"  and  a  caste  feeling 
unlike  anything  then  existing  elsewhere  in  America. 


1  If  questioned,  however,  he  would  not  have  defended  the  South 
ern  trader  in  slaves.  Southern  contempt  of  slave  dealers  was  an 
unconscious  condemnation  of  the  institution  so  generally  defended 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  slavery  regime.  Lincoln  knew  whereof  he 
spoke  when  in  1854  he  said  :  "  You  have  among  you  a  sneaking 
individual  .  .  .  who  watches  your  necessities  and  crawls  up 
/  to  buy  your  slave  at  a  speculating  price.  If  you  cannot  help  it  you 
sell  to  him ;  but  if  you  can  help  it,  you  drive  him  from  your  door. 
You  despise  him  utterly.  .  .  .  Your  children  may  rollick  with 
the  little  negroes  but  not  with  the  slave  dealer's  children.  It  is 
common  to  join  hands  with  men  you  meet;  but  with  him  you 
avoid  the  ceremony — instinctively  shrinking  from  the  snaky  con 
tact.  Why  is  this  ?  You  do  not  so  treat  the  man  who  deals  in 
corn  or  cattle  or  tobacco." 

**s»» 


STEPHENS  RETIRES  FROM  CONGRESS    147 

"  Our  slaves,"  he  went  on  to  say,  "  are  taken  from  the 
heathen  tribes — the  barbarians  of  Africa.  In  our 
households  they  are  brought  within  the  pale  of  the 
covenant,  under  Christian  teaching  and  influence  ;  and 
more  of  them  are  partakers  of  the  benefits  of  the  Gos 
pel  than  ever  were  rendered  so  by  missionary  enter 
prise.  The  wisdom  of  man  is  foolishness  ;  the  ways  of 
Providence  are  mysterious.  Nor  does  the  negro  feel 
any  sense  of  degradation  in  his  condition.  He  occu 
pies  the  same  grade  or  rank  in  society  that  he  does  in 
the  scale  of  being ;  it  is  his  natural  place  ;  and  all 
things  fit  when  nature's  great  first  law  of  order  is  con 
formed  to.'7  Stephens  would  doubtless  have  created  a 
stronger  impression  here  if  he  had  said  that,  as  the 
maj  ority  of  negroes  brought  to  America  were  slaves  in 
their  own  country  and  the  sons  of  slaves, l  they  were 
no  further  degraded  but  their  condition  greatly  im 
proved.  He  quoted  the  Apostolic  fathers  as  well  as 
the  Mosaic  laws  in  favor  of  slavery.  On  the  whole 
his  extensive  deliverance  was  scarcely  as  forcible  as 
,--the  single  utterance  of  the  Georgia  convention  of  1850, 
complaining  of  a  new  school  of  ethics  i  i  affecting  a 
morality  purer  than  that  of  the  Apostle  Paul  who  sent 
back  the  absconding  Onesimus  to  his  master ;  a  phi 
lanthropy  more  sublimated  than  that  of  the  angel  who, 
meeting  the  fugitive  Hagar  in  the  wilderness,  'said 
unto  her,  Return  to  thy  mistress  and  submit  thyself 
under  her  hand.'  " 

/-.  In  his  "  farewell  speech,"  on  his  proposed  retire- 

-   ment  from  public  life,  delivered  at  Augusta,  Ga.,  July 

2,  1859,  Stephens  rejoiced  that  the  slavery  institution 

was  apparently  more  strongly  fortified  than  it  ever 

1  Ante,  pp.  60-61. 


148  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

had  been,  as  a  result  of  the  agitations  following  the 
Compromise  of  1850.  "  Questions  that  were  doubtful 
and  mooted  before  these  agitations  have  since  been 
settled,"  he  said — "  settled  by  all  the  departments  of 
the  government,  the  legislative,  executive  and  judi 
cial,"  referring  to  Chief- Justice  Taney's  decision  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case  and  the  triumph  of  the  "  popular 
sovereignty"  plan  for  the  territories.  But  all  this 
was  not  enough,  he  thought,  and  the  advantage  gained 
would  be  fruitless  without  "an  increase  of  African 
slaves  from  abroad."  '  "It  takes  people  to  make 
States,"  he  said,  "and  it  requires  people  of  the 
African  race  to  make  slave  States.  You  may  not  ex 
pect  to  see  many  of  the  territories  come  into  the  Union 
as  slave  States  unless  we  have  an  increase  of  African 
stock."  2  Having  reached  the  point  where  he  could  ad-  • 
vocate  the  reopening  of  the  African  slave  trade,  which 
had  ceased  in  1808  by  the  decree  of  the  Constitution 
itself,  and  which  had  so  long  been  widely  condemned 
even  in  the  South,  it  was  but  a  step  to  his  glorification  of 
slavery  as  the  l  i  corner-stone 7  7  of  the  new  government  of 
the  Confederate  States  in  1861.  This  tentative  sugges 
tion  of  Stephens  in  1859  is  the  more  remarkable  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  the  Constitution  of  the  Confederacy 
adopted  two  years  later,  forbade  the  reopening  of  the 
African  slave  trade  and  no  proposition  to  do  otherwise 
was  even  offered  in  the  preliminary  councils.  The  long 
conflict,  the  bitter  partisanship,  the  continued  concen 
tration  of  attention  upon  one  unhappy  subject,  had 

1  Cleveland,  pp.  646-647. 

2  A  few  months  before  the  date  of  this  speech  the  smuggling 
slaver,  Wanderer,  sailing  under  the  flag  of  the  New  York  Yacht 
Club,  had  landed  750  negroes  from  the  Congo  on  the  coast  of 
Georgia. 


STEPHENS  EETIKES  FEOM  CONGEESS    149 

at  last  led  Stephens — though  instinctively  so  generous 
and  humane — to  a  position  that  would  have  better  be 
come  a  statesman  of  an  earlier  and  less  enlightened 
century.  / 

Believing  that  the  Southern  position  had  been  grad 
ually  strengthened  since  1850,  Stephens  was  the  more 
disappointed  at  the  failure  of  all  efforts  to  admit  Kan 
sas  under  the  Lecomptou  constitution.  He  blamed 
Southern  representatives  for  not  taking  advantage  of 
their  opportunities,  for  their  lack  of  interest  and  for 
their  neglect  of  duty.  He  speaks  in  a  letter  of  Jan 
uary  3,  1858,  of  twenty-two  Democrats,  thirteen  of 
them  from  the  South,  as  absent  at  a  critical  moment. 
"Had  they  been  present, "  he  laments,  "we  should 
have  saved  the  question.  How  shamefully  the  South 
is  represented  !  Some  of  the  Southern  members  were 
too  drunk  to  be  got  into  the  House." 

The  modern  reader  is  inclined  to  pardon  the  delin 
quents  for  seeking  distraction,  even  in  this  reprehen 
sible  manner,  from  an  exhausting  and  interminable 
sectional  controversy.  The  sectional  quarrel,  first 
over  the  slave  and  then  over  the  freedman,  has  lasted 
for  upward  of  a  hundred  years.  If  there  had  never 
been  a  slave  or  a  freedman,  and  all  this  wealth  of 
talent  and  energy  had  been  devoted  to  the  nation's  up 
lift,  what  might  not  have  been  accomplished  !  "To 
mix  daily  with  men  who  have  no  patriotism,7'  groans 
Stephens,  "  and  no  object  but  their  own  little  selfish 
ends,  is  disgusting."  His  sustained  enthusiasm  and 
tireless  zeal  were  beyond  the  reach  of  the  ordinary 
mortal  whom,  as  usual  in  impatient  moments,  he 
judges  too  harshly.  He  declares  that  he  is  wearing  his 
life  out  for  nothing  and  that  to  seek  rest  in  the  quiet  of 


150  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

his  home  is  imperative.  In  May  of  the  same  year  he 
prophetically  declares  :  c  i  All  things  here  are  tending 
to  bring  my  mind  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Union 
cannot  last  long." 

/It  would  appear  that  dissatisfaction  with  his  as 
sociates,  and  a  sense  of  the  futility  of  all  efforts  to 
prevent  the  inevitable  disruption,  as  well  as  his  broken 
health,  were  concerned  in  his  decision  to  retire.  When 
he  left  the  capital  in  March,  1859,  he  was  asked  if  he 
did  not  expect  to  come  back  as  a  senator.  "  No,"  he 
said,  "  I  never  expect  to  see  Washington  again,  unless 
I  am  brought  here  as  a  prisoner  of  war."  Nor  did  he 
see  Washington  again  until  October,  1865,  when  he 
passed  through  that  city  on  his  way  home  as  a  paroled 
State  prisoner  after  five  months  of  confinement  in  Fort 
Warren.  On  his  retirement  from  Congress,  he  was 
tendered  a  public  dinner  by  the  president  of  the  Sen 
ate,  the  Speaker  of  the  House  and  other  members  of 
each  chamber,  without  distinction  of  party,  as  a 
testimonial  of  personal  esteem.  But  he  pleaded  busi 
ness  engagements  and  declined  the  honor.  He  also 
had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  was  put  for 
ward  in  different  parts  of  the  country  as  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency.  His  letters  show  that  he  cherished 
no  such  ambition  and  that  he  discouraged  the  pro 
posal,  forbidding  the  placing  of  his  name  before  the 
Charleston  convention.  "  The  Democratic  party, "  he 
explained,  l  i  had  quite  enough  men  from  whom  to 
choose.  I  did  not  wish  the  office.  In  perfect  sincer 
ity,  I  should  exceedingly  dislike  to  be  President. 
What  amazes  me  in  Douglas  is  his  desire  to  be 
President.  I  have  sometimes  asked  him  what  he 
desired  the  office  for.  It  has  never  yet  added  to  the 


STEPHENS  EETIEES  FROM  CONGRESS    151 

fame  of  a  single  man.  You  may  look  over  the  list  of 
Presidents  :  which  of  them  made  any  reputation  after 
his  election  ?  Four  years,  or  even  eight  years  is  too 
short  a  time  to  enable  a  man  to  pursue  a  policy  which 
will  be  permanent  enough  to  give  him  reputation." 
r  In  a  state  of  physical  collapse,  disagreeing  with  his 
I  party  associates,  and  discouraged  at  the  outlook:  for 
Miis  section,  Stephens  was  weary  of  political  life..  His 
letters  to  his  brother  Linton  show  also  that 'me  was 
particularly  a  prey  at  this  time  to  that  mental  torture 
to  which  reference  has  been  made.  A  tour  of  the 
Northwest  benefited  but  did  not  restore  his  health. 
Once  settled  at  home,  though  always  a  sufferer,  he 
gave  continuing  attention  to  his  long  interrupted  law 
business,  until  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  with  satis 
factory  pecuniary  returns.  Unlike  many  politicians 
he  had  made  no  money  at  Washington,  but  the 
practice  of  his  profession  during  the  two  years  follow 
ing  his  retirement  brought  him  twenty -two  thousand 
dollars.  "A  rule  adopted  by  him  on  entering  Con 
gress  in  1843,"  declared  his  friend  R.  M.  Johnston  in 
1878,  "was  not  to  make  a  dollar  in  Washington  be 
yond  his  salary.  For  all  his  services  rendered  to  his 
constituents  before  the  Departments,  as  well  as  the 
Supreme  Court,  when  Congress  was  in  session,  receiv 
ing  for  them  upward  of  three  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars,  he  would  never  accept  a  dollar,  though  com 
pensation  was  often  urged  upon  him.  He  never  took 
a  case  into  one  of  his  State  courts  while  he  was  in 
Congress ;  though  during  that  period  he  often  ap 
peared,  as  an  advocate,  on  trial  of  causes  ;  but  always 
refused  to  engage  himself  as  such  advocate,  if  that 
duty  would  conflict  with  his  duties  at  Washington. 


152  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

In  this  way  he  made  considerable  sums,  often  as  much 
as  two  thousand  dollars  at  a  time ;  all  of  which  he 
devoted  to  charitable  purposes,  aiding  in  building 
churches  and  the  education  of  young  persons  without 
means." 

Stephens  declared  in  1859  that  he  preferred  the 
law  to  politics,  and  that  he  liked  "  being  at  home 
better  than  either.'7  He  fully  believed  that  the  polit 
ical  field  would  know  him  no  more,  but  destiny  ordered 
otherwise./ 


CHAPTER  IX 

HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION 

OWING  to  Democratic  divisions,  there  being  no  less 
than  three  tickets  in  the  field  against  Lincoln,  the 
latter  secured  180  electoral  votes  in  the  election  of 
1860,  while  a  total  of  only  123  were  received  by  the 
three-cornered  opposition  represented  by  Bell,  Breck- 
inridge,  and  Douglas.  This  result  was  due  to  the 
folly  of  the  Democrats  as  well  as  to  the  vast  propor 
tions  to  which  the  anti-slavery  movement  had  now 
grown.  Undoubtedly  tens  of  thousands  were  at 
tracted  to  the  Lincoln  ticket  simply  because  it  was 
clear  that  no  one  of  the  other  three  candidates  could 
possibly  be  elected.  If  the  Eepublicans  could  have 
won  against  an  undivided  Democracy  and  a  united 
South,  it  would  have  been  only  by  a  very  .narrow 
majority.  Even  as  it  was,  the  popular  vote  for 
Lincoln  was  but  1,857,610,  while  that  for  the  other 
three  candidates  was  2,787,780. 

The  Democrats  split  at  Charleston  on  the  popular 
sovereignty  question,  the  policy  represented  by  Doug 
las.  The  extremists  demanded  a  plank  providing  that 
the  choice  of  slavery  or  no  slavery  in  the  territories 
should  not  be  left  to  a  majority  of  the  people  therein, 
but  that  all  citizens  of  the  United  States  should  have 
a  right  to  settle  "with  their  property"  in  the  terri 
tories  "  without  their  rights  either  of  person  or  prop 
erty  being  destroyed  or  impaired  by  Congressional  or 


154  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

territorial  legislation."  And  yet  popular  sovereignty, 
or  the  leaving  of  the  question  for  settlement  to  the 
territories,  as  to  the  States,  was  in  agreement  with  the 
old  Southern  position  prior  to  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  of  1820  ;  it  was  in  agreement  with  Calhoun's 
demand  of  non-intervention  on  the  part  of  Congress ; 
it  was  in  agreement  with  the  Clay  Compromise  of 
1850,  and  with  the  policy  that  prevailed  in  the 
passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  in  1854.  In 
fundamental  principle  it  was  also  in  harmony  with  the 
home  rule  and  State  rights  policy  so  persistently  de 
fended  by  the  Democratic  party  from  the  outset.  It 
may  be  said,  therefore,  that  if  the  Southern  leaders  in 
1860  had  been  willing  to  let  well  enough  alone  and 
stand  by  the  South' s  historic  position,  instead  of  as 
suming  a  more  aggressive  and  less  consistent  one,  a 
united  Democracy  would  have  supported  the  policy 
then  represented  by  Douglas,  whether  he  personally 
were  supported  or  not./  In  speaking  out  in  favor  of 
the  Douglas  ticket,  Stephens  was  perfectly  consistent 
with  his  own  record  and  that  of  the  South  on  this 
question,  f 

Writing  on  May  9,  I860,  in  answer  to  a  letter  from 
thirteen  citizens  of  Macon,  Ga. ,  asking  for  his  views 
and  his  counsel,  Stephens  said  : 

"I  assume  as  an  unquestioned  and  unquestionable 
fact  that  non-intervention  has  for  many  years  been  re 
ceived,  recognized  and  acted  upon  as  the  settled 
doctrine  of  the  South.  By  non-intervention,  I  mean 
the  principle  that  Congress  shall  pass  no  law  upon  the 
subject  of  slavery  in  the  Territories,  either  for  or 
against  it  in  any  way — that  they  shall  not  interfere  or 
act  upon  it  at  all, — or  in  the  express  words  of  Mr. 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  155 

Calhoun,  the  great  Southern  leader,  that  Congress 
shall  '  leave  the  whole  subject  where  the  Constitution 
and  the  great  principles  of  self-government  placed  it.' 
This  has  been  eminently  a  Southern  doctrine.  It  was 
announced  by  Mr.  Calhoun  in  his  speech  in  the  Senate 
on  the  27th  of  June,  1848,  and  after  two  years  of  dis 
cussion  was  adopted  as  the  basis  of  the  adjustment 
made  in  1850.  It  was  the  demand  of  the  South,  put 
forth  by  the  South,  and  since  its  establishment  finally 
has  been  again  and  again  affirmed  and  reaffirmed  as 
the  settled  policy  of  the  South  by  party  conventions 
and  State  legislatures.  ...  It  was  not  a  new 
question  and,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  it  has  been 
decided — decided  and  settled  just  as  the  South  asked 
that  it  should  be, — not,  however,  without  great  effort 
and  a  prolonged  struggle.  The  question  now  is,  shall 
the  South  abandon  her  own  position  in  that  decision 
and  settlement  ?  This  is  the  question  virtually  pre 
sented  by  the  action  of  the  seceders  from  the  Charleston 
convention  ;  or,  stated  in  other  words,  it  amounts  to 
this:  whether  the  Southern  States,  after  all  that  has 
taken  place,  should  now  reverse  their  previous  course, 
and  demand  Congressional  intervention  for  the  protec 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  Territories  as  a  condition  of  their 
remaining  longer  in  the  Union  ?  Shall  the  South 
make  this  demand  of  Congress,  and  when  made,  in 
case  of  failure  to  obtain  it,  shall  she  secede  from  the 
Union,  as  /a  portion  of  her  delegates  (some  under  in 
structions  and  some  of  their  own  free  will)  seceded 
from  the  Charleston  convention  on  their  failure  to  get 
it  granted  there  !  .  .  .  My  judgment  is  against  the 
demand. " 


When  interviewed  about  the  same  time  and  asked 
what  he  thought  of  the  outlook,  in  the  light  of  what 
had  occurred  at  the  Charleston  convention,  Stephens 
said  :  "  Men  will  be  cutting  each  other's  throats  in  a 
little  while.  In  less  than  twelve  months  we  shall  be 


156  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

\\  involved  in  a  war,  and  that  the  bloodiest  in  history. 
Men  seem  to  be  utterly  blinded  to  the  future."  But 
why,  he  was  asked,  would  war  be  inevitable  even  if 
the  Eepublican  candidate  should  be  elected?  He 
answered  that  there  were  not  enough  virtue  and  pa 
triotism  and  good  sense  left  in  the  country  to  avoid  it. 

"  Mark  me,  when  I  repeat  that  in  less  than  twelve 
months  we  shall  be  in  the  midst  of  a  bloody  war. 
What  is  to  become  of  us  then  God  only  knows.  The 
Union  will  certainly  be  disrupted  ;  and  what  will 
make  it  so  disastrous  is  the  way  in  which  it  will  be 
done.  The  Southern  people  are  not  unanimous  now, 
and  will  not  be,  on  the  question  of  secession.  The 
Eepublican  nominee  will  be  elected.  Then  South 
Carolina  will  secede.  For  me,  I  should  be  content 
to  let  her  have  her  own  way  and  go  out  alone.  But 
the  Gulf  States  will  follow  her  example.  The  people 
are  by  no  means  unanimous  ;  but  the  majorities  will 
follow  her.  They  are  what  we  will  start  off  with  in 
our  new  nation — the  Gulf  States  following  South 
Carolina.  After  that  the  Border  States  will  hesitate, 
and  their  hesitation  will  encourage  the  North  to  make- 
war  on  us.  If  the  South  would  unanimously  and 
simultaneously  go  out  of  the  Union  we  could  make  a 
very  strong  government.  But  even  then  if  there  were 
only  slave  States  in  the  new  Confederacy  we  should 
be  known  as  the  Black  Eepublic,  and  be  without  the 
sympathy  of  the  world."  ' 

This  was  a  true  prophecy  in  every  particular,  even 
to  the  last  statement.  But  Stephens7  s  sagacity  and 
clear  vision  as  to  this  fatal  weakness  of  the  South 
ern  Confederacy  seemed  to  have  deserted  him  a 
year  later,  when,  in  a  speech  delivered  at  Savannah,  as 
Vice-President  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America, 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  356. 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  157 

and  well  knowing  that  what  he  said  would  be  heard 
throughout  the  world,  he  glorified  the  slavery  institu 
tion  as  the  "  corner-stone  "  of  the  new  government. 

It  is  difficult  even  for  the  student  of  the  records  to 
understand  the  intense  excitement  and  alarm  caused 
in  the  Southern  States  by  the  mere  election  of  the  first 
Republican  President.  The  result  was  brought  about 
by  a  purely  sectional  vote,  and  the  country  was  thus 
to  a  greater  degree  than  ever  divided  into  two  more 
or  less  hostile  camps ;  but  the  election  was  Constitu 
tional,  there  was  no  charge  of  fraud,  and  in  both 
houses  of  Congress  the  Democrats  had  secured  a  ma 
jority.  The  slavery -protecting  Constitution  was  still 
in  force  and  until  it  was  defied  at  Washington,  as  it 
had  been  defied  in  the  legislatures  of  the  Northern 
States,  there  could  be  no  just  ground  of  complaint 
against  President  Lincoln  and  his  advisers.  Never 
theless  there  was  a  feeling  in  the  South,  and  the  feel 
ing  grew,  that  his  election  was  the  beginning  of  the 
end,  as  it  really  was.  Already  many  Northern  States 
had  nullified  the  fugitive  slave  clause  of  the  Constitu 
tion  through  their  enactment  of  a  personal  liberty" 
laws,  and  what  might  not  be  expected  of  them  now 
that  a  President  representing  the  anti-slavery  move 
ment  had  been  elected  f  Was  not  the  John  Brown 
raid  and  undisguised  Northern  sympathy  therewith  an 
unequivocal  indication  of  what  was  to  come  when  the 
time  was  ripe  and  men  were  ready  to  act  on  their  con 
victions  ?  The  Northern  States  having  already  violated 
the  compact  of  Union,  clearly  there  was  now  no  hope 
that  the  Southern  States  could  long  maintain  their 
Constitutional  rights.  Not  only  was  the  institution  of 
slavery  doomed,  but  a  minority  of  States  must  here- 


158  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

after  submit  to  dictation  from  a  hostile  majority  in 
control  of  the  central  government.  Thus  secession  ap 
peared  to  be  the  only  means  of  redress,  the  right  of  such 
action  being  now  questioned  by  nobody  at  the  South, 
apparently,  not  even  by  Unionists  like  Stephens. 
Such  was  the  mental  attitude  and  the  feeling  among 
the  great  body  of  conservatives  as  well  as  among  ex 
tremists.  Even  the  "poor  whites,'7  although  they 
could  not  have  been  unaware  of  the  damage  done 
them  by  the  competition  of  slave  labor,  shared  the 
universal  dread  of  the  consequences  of  freeing  the 
negroes  and  turning  them  loose  upon  society,  and  were 
instinctively  as  much  inclined  to  resent  interference 
from  the  outside  as  the  slaveholders  themselves. 

On  November  14,  1860,  immediately  after  the  elec 
tion  of  Lincoln,  Stephens  was  invited  to  address  the 
Georgia  legislature  on  the  situation.  Eobert  Toornbs 
had  spoken  before  the  same  assembly  the  preceding 
iiight.  "Will  you  submit  to  Abolition  rule,  or  re- 
si  st?"  he  thundered.  "I  ask  you  to  give  me  the 
sword,  for  if  you  do  not  give  it  to  me,  as  God  lives,  I 
will  take  it  myself !  " 

Stephens,  on  his  side,  spoke  dispassionately  and 
earnestly,  denying  that  the  Union  had  been  "a  curse 
up  to  this  time,"  and  pointing  out  the  many  and  great 
blessings,  and  the  prosperity,  which  all  the  States  had 
enjoyed.  He  recalled  how,  in  1832,  the  tariff  question 
had  so  agitated  the  country  that  South  Carolina  was 
ready  to  nullify  or  secede  because  of  it ;  and  yet  an 
equitable  adjustment  had  been  brought  about,  reason, 
not  passion,  had  triumphed,  and  "the  present  tariff 
was  voted  for  by  Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina." 
He  declared  that  the  election  of  no  man  constitution- 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  159 

ally  chosen  was  sufficient  cause  for  any  State  to  sepa 
rate  from  the  Union.  "  I  do  not  anticipate,77  he  said, 
"that  Mr.  Lincoln  will  do  anything  to  jeopard  our 
safety  or  security.  He  can  do  nothing  unless  he  is 
backed  by  power  in  Congress.  The  House  of  Bepre- 
sentatives  is  largely  in  the  majority  against  him.  In 
the  Senate  he  will  also  be  powerless.  There  will  be  a 
majority  of  four  against  him.'7  Speaking  of  the  haz 
ards  of  secession  and  the  fate  of  ancient,  disintegrating, 
republics,  he  said : 

t i  My  countrymen,  if  we  shall  in  an  evil  hour  rashly 
pull  down  and  destroy  those  institutions  which  the 
patriotic  hand  of  our  fathers  labored  so  long  and  so 
hard  to  build  up,  and  which  have  done  so  much  for 
us  and  for  the  world,  who  can  venture  the  prediction 
that  similar  results  will  not  ensue  ?  There  were  many 
amongst  us  in  1850  zealous  to  go  at  once  out  of  the 
Union,  to  disrupt  every  tie  that  binds  us  together. 
Now  do  you  believe,  had  that  policy  been  carried  out 
at  that  time,  we  should  have  been  the  same  great 
people  we  are  to-day  ? 77 

He  was  for  seeking  redress  of  grievances  within  the 
Union  of  the  fathers,  as  long  as  any  hope  of  success 
existed ;  but  should  there  be  an  end  of  hope  in  the 
face  of  wilful  aggression,  "no  man  in  Georgia  will  be 
more  willing  to  defend  our  rights,  interest  and  honor, 
at  every  hazard  and  to  the  last  extremity.77  He  ad 
mitted  that  the  policy  of  Lincoln  and  his  Eepublican 
associates  was  to  t '  use  the  power  of  the  general  gov 
ernment  against  the  extension  of  our  institutions,77  and 
went  on  to  say  : 

"Our  position  on  this  point  is,  and  ought  to  be,  at 
all  hazards,  for  perfect  equality  between  all  the  States 


160  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

and  the  citizens  of  all  the  States  in  the  Territories, 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  If  Con 
gress  should  exercise  its  power  against  this,  then  I  am 
for  standing  where  Georgia  planted  herself  in  1850. 
These  were  plain  propositions  which  were  then  laid 
down  in  her  celebrated  platform,  as  sufficient  for  the 
disruption  of  the  Union  if  the  occasion  should  ever 
come  ;  on  these  Georgia  has  declared  that  she  will  go 
out  of  the  Union  ;  and  for  these  she  would  be  justified 
by  the  nations  of  the  earth  in  so  doing.  I  say  the 
same  .  .  .  if  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy  should  be  carried 
out.  I  have  told  you  that  I  do  not  think  his  bare 
election  sufficient  cause ;  but  if  his  policy  should  be 
carried  out,  in  the  violation  of  any  of  the  principles 
set  forth  in  the  Georgia  platform,  that  would  be  such 
an  act  of  aggression,  which  ought  to  be  met  as  therein 
provided  for.  If  his  policy  should  be  carried  out  in 
repealing  or  modifying  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  so  as  to 
weaken  its  efficacy,  Georgia  has  declared  that  she  will, 
in  the  last  resort,  disrupt  the  ties  of  the  Union — and  I 
say  so,  too.  I  stand  upon  the  Georgia  platform  and 
upon  every  plank  of  it ;  and  if  these  aggressions  therein 
provided  for  take  place,  I  say  to  you  and  to  the  people 
of  Georgia,  be  ready  for  the  assault  when  it  comes ; 
keep  your  powder  dry  and  let  your  assailants  then 
have  lead  if  need  be.  I  would  wait  for  an  act  of 
aggression.  This  is  my  position. " 

Stephens  then  discussed  the  action  of  the  Northern 
States  which  by  legislation  had  nullified  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  based  on  the  well  known  clause  in  the  Con 
stitution,  and  had  so  long  ignored  repeated  demands 
for  redress  of  this  most  serious  grievance. 

"  Northern  States,"  he  said,  "  on  entering  the  Fed 
eral  compact  pledged  themselves  to  surrender  such 
fugitives.  .  .  .  They  have  violated  their  plighted 
faith.  What  ought  we  to  do  in  view  of  this  ?  By  the 
law  of  nations  you  would  have  the  right  to  demand  the 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  161 

carrying  out  of  this  article  of  agreement,  and  I  do  not 
see  that  it  should  be  otherwise  with  respect  to  the 
States  of  this  Union ;  and  in  case  it  be  not  done,  we 
would  by  these  principles,  have  the  right  to  commit 
acts  of  reprisal  on  those  faithless  governments,  and 
seize  upon  their  property,  or  that  of  their  citizens 
wherever  found.  The  States  of  this  Union  stand  upon 
the  same  footing  as  foreign  nations  in  this  respect. 
But  by  the  law  of  nations  we  are  equally  bound,  before 
proceeding  to  violent  measures,  to  set  forth  our  griev 
ances  before  the  offending  governments,  to  give  them 
an  opportunity  to  redress  the  wrong.  .  .  .  Let  us, 
therefore,  not  act  hastily.  Let  your  committee  on  the 
state  of  the  republic  make  out  a  bill  of  grievances  ;  let 
it  be  sent  to  the  governors  of  those  faithless  States ; 
and  if  reason  and  argument  shall  be  tried  in  vain — if 
all  shall  fail  to  induce  them  to  return  to  their  Consti 
tutional  obligations,  I  would  be  for  retaliatory  meas 
ures,  such  as  the  Governor  [Brown]  has  suggested  to 
you.  This  mode  of  resistance  in  the  Union  is  in  our 
power.  It  might  be  effectual,  and  if  not,  in  the  last 
resort,  we  would  be  justified  in  the  eyes  of  nations, 
not  only  in  separating  from  them  but  in  using  force. 
.  .  .  My  own  opinion  is  that  if  this  course  be  pur 
sued,  and  they  are  informed  of  the  consequences  of 
refusal,  these  States  will  recede,  will  repeal  their  nulli 
fying  acts ;  but  if  they  should  not,  then  let  the  conse 
quences  be  with  them,  and  the  responsibility  of  the 
consequences  rest  upon  them." 

Toombs  and  others  had  demanded  that  the  legis 
lature  of  Georgia,  then  in  session,  pass  an  ordinance 
of  secession,  but  Stephens  contended  that  this  body 
had  no  such  power  and  insisted  that  a  special  conven 
tion  be  called  to  consider  the  matter  (which  later  was 
done)  in  order  to  "hear  from  the  crossroads  and  the 
groceries"  and  know  the  will  of  the  people.  He  sug 
gested  that  the  proposed  convention  reaffirm  the 


162  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

Georgia  platform  of  1850,  with  an  additional  plank  in 
it  calling  for  the  fulfilment  of  their  Constitutional 
obligations  on  the  part  of  the  " faithless  States"  and 
their  "  repeal  of  these  obnoxious  laws  as  the  condition 
of  our  remaining  in  the  Union,'7  adding  : 

* '  I  am  for  exhausting  all  that  patriotism  demands 
before  taking  the  last  step.  I  would  therefore  invite 
South  Carolina  to  a  conference.  I  would  ask  the  same 
of  all  the  other  Southern  States,  so  that  if  the  evil  has 
got  beyond  our  control,  which  God  in  His  mercy  grant 
may  not  be  the  case,  we  may  not  be  divided  among 
ourselves,  but  if  possible  secure  the  united  cooperation 
of  all  the  Southern  States  ;  and  then,  in  the  face  of  the 
civilized  world,  we  may  justify  our  action,  and,  with 
the  wrong  all  on  the  other  side,  we  can  appeal  to  the 
God  of  battles  to  aid  us  in  our  cause.  But  do  nothing 
in  which  any  portion  of  our  people  may  charge  you 
with  rash  and  hasty  action.  It  is  certainly  a  matter 
of  great  importance  to  tear  this  government  asunder. 
You  were  not  sent  here  for  that  purpose.  I  would 
wish  the  whole  South  to  be  united  if  that  is  to  be 
done.  ...  In  this  way  our  sister  Southern  States 
may  be  induced  to  act  with  us ;  and  I  have  but  little 
doubt  that  the  States  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Ohio  and  the  other  Western  States,  will  compel 
their  legislatures  to  recede  from  their  hostile  attitude, 
if  the  others  do  not.  Then  with  these  we  would  go 
on  without  New  England,  if  she  chose  to  stay  out." 

During  Stephens' s  speech  there  were  several  critical 
interjections  from  Toombs  aud  others,  and  one  of  these 
was  to  the  effect  that  the  argument  with  the  faithless 
States  of  the  North  had  already  been  exhausted.  This 
was  duly  effective,  being  not  without  point,  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  Calhoun  had  protested  in  the  Senate  in 
1850,  and  even  Webster  had  at  the  same  time  urged 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  163 

the  Northern  States  to  right  the  wrong  of  their  nullify 
ing  legislation  which  was  already  notorious.  Later 
Southern  protest  had  been  loud  and  repeated,  yet 
nullifying  legislation  continued  and  became  still  more 
obnoxious  in  form  and  scope. 1 

Stephens  closed  with  an  appeal  to  Georgia's  motto 
of  "  wisdom,  justice  and  moderation,"  and  reminded 
his  hearers  that  in  the  event  of  the  failure  of  all 
measures  of  enlightened  conservatism  "we  shall  at 
least  have  the  satisfaction  ^  of  knowing  that  we  have 
done  our  duty  and  all  that  patriotism  could  require." 
Notwithstanding  his  opposing  and  radical  position, 
Toombs  generously  rose  at  the  close  of  Stephens' s 
speech  and  said:  " Fellow  citizens,  we  have  just 
listened  to  a  speech  from  one  of  the  brightest  intellects 
and  purest  patriots  that  now  lives.  I  move  that  this 
meeting  now  adjourn,  with  three  cheers  for  Alexander 
H.  Stephens  of  Georgia  ! ' '  The  applause  greeting 
the  proposal  is  described  as  deaf ening.X  This  speech 
against  secession  attracted  attention  throughout  the 
country,  and  being  either  misquoted,  or  quoted  only 
in  part,  gave  rise  to  the  impression  that  Stephens  not 
only  opposed  the  disruption  of  the  Union  on  the 
ground  of  policy  but  denied  the  abstract  right  of 
secession.  Never  was  a  misapprehension  more  com 
plete.  Disunion  sentiment  had  been  denounced  as 
treasonable  by  certain  Georgia  newspapers  in  1851, 
but  the  opposition  ten  years  later  does  not  appear  to 
have  taken  any  such  violent  form.  Not  the  right  or 
the  wrong,  but  the  wisdom  or  folly  of  such  a  course 
was  now  the  question  at  issue,  and  Stephens,  the 
strongest  Union  man  in  Georgia,  had  been  a  seces- 
^ee  ante,  pp.  104-106,  113-115,  124-126. 


164  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

sionist  theoretically  ever  since  the  nullification  agita 
tion  of  1832.  Apparently  it  did  not  occur  to  any  of 
the  Southern  leaders  to  question  the  right  of  secession, 
which  was  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  last 
resort.  Even  after  the  tragic  collapse  of  the  move 
ment  Stephens  never  wavered  in  his  belief  in  and 
assertion  of  a  sovereign  State's  right  to  secede,  as  his 
answers  when  called  before  the  Reconstruction  Com 
mittee  clearly  show.  His  Constitutional  View  of  the 
Late  War  Between  the  States,  written  between  1866  and 
1870  is  the  most  exhaustive  and  the  most  able  de 
fense  of  the  secession  of  the  Southern  States  in  ex 
istence. 

In  his  private  correspondence  Stephens  spoke  of  re 
ceiving  a  large  number  of  letters  from  the  Northern 
States  discussing  his  anti-secession  speech,  nearly  all 
of  them  favorably.  He  referred  to  one  from  George 
P.  Curtis,  of  Boston,  "  an  old  Webster  Whig,"  who 
1 '  says  that  he  believes  that  Massachusetts  will  repeal 
her  laws  ;  that  if  our  State  would  send  a  proper  man 
there,  it  would,  in  his  judgment,  be  done.  They  in 
tend,  at  any  rate,  to  make  the  effort ;  and  if  they  do 
not,  we  would  be  justified  in  quitting  the  Union. " 
Another  was  from  Richard  Broadhead,  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  a  former  senator,  who  i  i  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  the  present  Republican  legislature  of  Pennsyl 
vania  would  immediately  in  January  repeal  their 
'  personal  liberty '  laws."  One  of  the  letters  was  from 
president-elect  Lincoln  asking  for  a  revised  copy  of 
the  speech.  Stephens  replied  saying  that  his  revision 
amounted  to  no  more  than  a  glance  over  the  reporters' 
notes,  which  were  substantially  correct.  Ever  since 
they  had  been  Whigs  together  in  the  House  in  the 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  165 

forties,  Lincoln  had  admired  Stephens,  and  it  is  even 
said  that  he  now  considered  the  advisability  of  invit 
ing  him  to  become  a  member  of  his  cabinet.1  In  view 
of  Lincoln's  position  and  that  of  Stephens  on  the 
slavery  question,  the  story  is  doubtful.  There  is 
nothing  in  Stephens' s  correspondence  to  suggest  that 
he  had  any  knowledge  of  the  matter.  He  would  un 
doubtedly  have  regarded  such  an  invitation  as  an  in 
tolerable  reflection  upon  his  sincerity  and  good  faith, 
even  though  admitting  it  to  be  well  meant. 

Shortly  after  Stephens' s  reply  to  Lincoln's  request— 
a  reply  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  country's  "great 
peril"  and  declared  that  "no  man  ever  had  heavier 
or  greater  responsibilities  than  you  have  in  the  present 
momentous  crisis," — Lincoln  wrote  as  follows  : 

"  For  your  own  eye  only 

"SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  DEC.  22,  1860. 
"HoN.  A.  H.  STEPHENS  — 

"MY  DEAR  SIR: 

"Your  obliging  answer  to  my  short  note  is  just 
received,  and  for  which  please  accept  my  thanks.  I 
fully  appreciate  the  present  peril  the  country  is  in, 
and  the  weight  of  responsibility  on  me. 

"  Do  the  people  of  the  South  really  entertain  fear 
that  a  Eepublican  administration  would  directly  or 
indirectly  interfere  with  the  slaves  or  with  them  about 
the  slaves  ?  If  they  do,  I  wish  to  assure  you,  as  once 
a  friend,  and  still,  I  hope,  not  an  enemy,  that  there  is 
no  cause  for  such  fears. 

' i  The  South  would  be  in  no  more  danger  in  this  re 
spect  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Washington.  I  sup 
pose,  however,  that  does  not  meet  the  case.  You 
think  slavery  is  right  and  ought  to  be  extended  ;  while 

1  Ellis  Paxsoii  Oberholtzer,  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  162. 


166  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

we  think  it  is  wrwig,  and  ought  to  be  abolished. 
That,  I  suppose,  is  the  rub.  It  certainly  is  the  only 
substantial  difference  between  us. 

"  Yours  veiy  truly, 

"  A.  LINCOLN."  l 


The  two  positions  were  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles  ; 
they  were  mutually  antagonistic  and  destructive,  and 
no  one  saw  this  more  clearly  than  Abraham  Lincoln, 
whose  campaign  oratory  for  five  years  had  been  based 
on  his  well  known  theorem  that  the  nation  could  not 
endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  It  is  quite  clear  that 
he  had  thoughts  and  aims  of  which  he  was  not  yet 
ready  to  speak.  Great  man,  patriot,  and  friend  of  hu 
manity  though  he  was,  he  was  nevertheless  one  of  the 
shrewdest  and  most  calculating  of  politicians,  moving 
with  the  current,  not  ahead  of  it,  feeling  his  way, 
keeping  his  ear  to  the  ground,  and  biding  his  time. 
His  latest  biographer  well  says  of  him  that  "he  told 
anecdotes  to  evade  issues,  cherished  intentions  that  he 
did  not  publish,  and  tempered  his  speeches  for  those 
to  whom  they  were  addressed."  2 

Stephens,  in  his  prompt  reply,  said  there  was  no 
fear  that  a  Eepublican  administration  would  "  attempt 
to  interfere  directly  and  immediately  with  slavery  in  the 
States,"  but  he  pointed  to  just  reasons  for  the  convic 
tion  that  such  an  attempt  would  sooner  or  later  be 
made.  "  I  entreat  you,"  he  wrote,  "not  to  be  de 
ceived  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  danger,  nor 
as  to  the  remedy."  He  spoke  as  "one  who  would 


facsimile,  p.  266,  Vol.  II,  Stephens's  Constitutional  View 
of  the  War. 

9  Oberholtzer's  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  301. 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  167 

have  you  do  what  you  can  to  save  our  common  coun 
try,"  when  he  added  : 

"The  Union  was  formed  by  the  consent  of  inde 
pendent  sovereign  States.  Ultimate  sovereignty  still 
resides  with  them  separately,  which  can  be  resumed, 
and  will  be,  if  their  safety,  tranquillity  and  security,  in 
their  judgment  require  it.  Under  our  system  as  I 
view  it,  there  is  no  rightful  power  in  the  general  gov 
ernment  to  coerce  a  State,  in  case  any  one  of  them 
should  throw  herself  upon  her  reserved  rights  and  re 
sume  the  full  exercise  of  her  sovereign  powers.  Force 
may  perpetuate  a  Union.  That  depends  upon  the 
contingencies  of  war.  But  such  a  Union  would  not  be 
the  Union  of  the  Constitution.  It  would  be  nothing 
short  of  a  consolidated  despotism.  .  .  .  Consider 
well  what  I  write,  and  let  it  have  such  weight  with 
you  as  in  your  judgment,  under  all  the  responsibilities 
resting  upon  you,  it  merits." 

Stephens  could  have  had  little  hope  that  this  appeal 
would  serve  its  purpose.  He  was  convinced  that  if  the 
Southern  States  seceded  an  effort  to  coerce  them  would 
be  made  by  the  Northern  States,  through  the  govern 
ment  they  had  placed  in  control  at  Washington.  He 
knew  also  that  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  himself  and 
other  conservatives,  secession  would  take  place.  He 
was  in  despair.  "I  am  daily  becoming  more  con 
firmed,"  he  wrote  to  Linton  Stephens  on  November  30th, 
"that  all  efforts  to  save  the  Union  will  be  unavailing. 
The  truth  is,  our  leaders  and  public  men  who  have 
taken  hold  of  this  question  do  not  desire  to  continue  it 
on  any  terms.  They  do  not  wish  any  redress  of  wrongs  ; 
they  are  disunionists  per  se,  and  avail  themselves  of 
present  circumstances  to  press  their  objects ;  and  my 


168  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

present  conviction  is  that  they  will  carry  the  State  by 
ajority."  Happy  is  the  man  who  in  a  great 
crisis  can  be  an  uncompromising  partisan.  His  path 
1  is  easy.  No  such  ready  decision  and  contentment  of 
mind  pertain  to  the  lot  of  the  truer  patriots  and  philos 
ophers,  such  as  Stephens,  who  see  and  mourn  over 
the  errors  of  both  sides. 

All  Southern  Union  men  must  have  regarded  the 
message  of  President  Buchanan,  sent  to  Congress  on 
the  first  Monday  in  December,  1860,  as  unfortunate  in 
its  effect  in  their  section.  It  was  intended  to  recall  the 
nullifying  Northern  States  to  their  Constitutional  ob 
ligations,  and  thus  prevent  a  rupture ;  but,  while  it 
denied  the  legal  right  of  secession,  its  effect  was  really 
to  encourage  the  intending  seceders  to  follow  the  course 
they  had  determined  upon.  The  Democratic  Presi 
dent  was  a  Pennsylvania!!,  without  a  slaveholdiug 
Southerner's  prejudices,  and  the  abuse  heaped  upon 
him  by  those  whom  he  forced  to  face  certain  facts 
which  they  wished  to  ignore,  was  unwarranted.  It 
might  have  been  more  prudent  in  the  circumstances 
to  have  acknowledged  less  fully  the  South' s  just 
grounds  of  complaint,  but  he  spoke  the  truth. 

He  said  that  "the  long- continued  and  intemperate 
interference  of  the  Northern  people  with  the  question 
I'  of  slavery  in  the  Southern  States  has  at  length  pro 
duced  its  natural  effects,"  and  declared  that  "the 
most  palpable  violations  of  Constitutional  duty  which 
have  yet  been  committed  consist  in  the  acts  of  different 
Northern  State  legislatures  to  defeat  the  execution  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law " — a  law  "founded  upon  the 
express  provision  of  the  Constitution  requiring  that 
fugitive  slaves  who  escape  from  service  in  one  State  to 


HE  OPPOSES  SECESSION  169 

another  shall  be  t  delivered  up '  to  their  masters."  He 
pointedly  added  that  l  i  without  this  provision  it  is  a 
well  known  historical  fact  that  the  Constitution  itself 
could  never  have  been  adopted  by  the  convention." 
He  therefore  called  upon  the  Northern  States  to  "  re 
peal  their  unconstitutional  and  obnoxious  enactments," 
for  "  unless  this  shall  be  done  without  unnecessary  de 
lay,  it  is  impossible  for  any  human  power  to  save  the 
Union."  He  urged  Congress  to  admonish  the  offend 
ing  States  to  repeal  their  "personal  liberty"  laws. 
President  Buchanan  solemnly  declared  that  the  "  sov 
ereign"  States  of  the  South,  "  standing  on  the  basis 
of  the  Constitution,  have  a  right  to  demand  this  act  of 
justice  from  the  States  of  the  North.  Should  it  be  re 
fused,  then  the  Constitution,  to  which  all  the  States 
are  parties,  will  have  been  wilfully  violated  by  one 
portion  of  them  in  a  provision  essential  to  the  do 
mestic  security  and  happiness  of  the  remainder.  In 
that  event  the  injured  States,  after  having  first  used  all 
peaceful  and  Constitutional  means  to  obtain  redress, 
would  be  justified  in  revolutionary  resistance  to  the 
government  of  the  Union."  1 

Whether  Congress  would  have  taken  any  decisive 
action,  whether  the  offending  Northern  States  would 
have  paid  any  attention  to  the  remonstrance,  will 
never  be  certainly  known.  But  probably  nothing 
would  have  done,  for  they  had  persisted  in  their  Con 
stitution-nullifying  course  for  years  in  the  teeth  of 
solemn  protest.  Having  refused  to  notice  Daniel 
Webster7 s  appeal  in  1850,  they  could  scarcely  be  ex 
pected  to  do  other  than  ignore  the  voice  of  Buchanan 

1  George  Ticknor  Curtis,  Life  of  James  Buchanan,  Vol.  II,  pp. 
338-349. 


170  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

in  1860.  In  any  case,  South  Carolina  did  not  wait  to 
see,  but  passed  her  ordinance  of  secession  on  Decem 
ber  20th.  The  other  Southern  States,  including  Geor 
gia,  which  had  already  called  a  secession  conven 
tion  to  meet  on  January  16,  1861,  followed  after  brief 
intervals,  and  the  most  momentous  political  event  of 
the  nineteenth  century  in  America  was  accomplished. 
The  feeling  of  exasperation  in  the  South,  and  the 
spirit  of  determination  to  do  and  dare  at  all  hazards, 
were  vividly  expressed  in  Timrod's  powerful  and  im 
passioned  ode,  of  which  the  following  is  a  brief  ex 
tract  : 

4 '  Ere  thou  shall  own  the  tyrant's  thrall 
Ten  times  ten  thousand  men  must  fall ; 
Thy  corpse  may  hearken  to  his  call, 

Carolina ! 

"  When  by  thy  bier  in  mournful  throngs 
The  women  chant  thy  mortal  wrongs, 
'Twill  be  their  own  funereal  songs, 

Carolina  I 

11  From  thy  dead  breast  by  ruffians  trod 
No  helpless  child  shall  look  to  God ; 
All  shall  be  safe  beneath  thy  sod, 

Carolina ! 


"  Fling  down  thy  gauntlet  to  the  Huns, 
And  roar  the  challenge  from  thy  guns, 
Then  leave  the  future  to  thy  sons, 

Carolina ! " 


CHAPTER  X 

GEORGIA  SECEDES 

AFTER  Congress  assembled  in  December,  1860,  fu 
tile  compromise  measures  were  proposed  by  Mr. 
Crittenden,  but  they  did  not  satisfy  the  Southern  ex 
tremists  and  the  Eepublican  members  refused  to  vote 
for  them.  A  resolution  was  adopted  by  the  Senate 
declaring  that  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  were 
already  ample  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and 
that  they  needed  to  be  obeyed  rather  than  amended. 
This  was  true,  but  it  was  equally  true  that  the  Consti 
tution  had  not  been  obeyed  for  many  years.  As 
Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  naively  confessed  in  the 
peace  convention  called  by  Virginia  to  meet  in  Wash 
ington,  February  4,  1861,  the  trouble  was  that,  inas 
much  as  the  people  of  the  free  States  believed  that 
slavery  was  wrong,  the  mandate  of  the  Constitution 
that  fugitive  slaves  be  surrendered  "  becomes  a  dead 
letter. ' '  The  obvious  reply  of  the  South  to  this  reason 
ing  was  that  when  one  group  of  States  took  it  upon 
themselves  to  decide  which  important  mandates  of  the 
Constitution  had  become  so  much  "dead  letter"  and 
which  had  not,  it  was  high  time  for  the  other  group  or 
groups  to  repudiate  the  violated  compact  of  Union 
and  form  new  alliances  or  associations. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Mr.  Chase,  who 
four  years  later  became  Chief- Justice  of  the  United 
States,  went  on  to  express  the  view  that  a  "  true  solu 
tion  "  of  the  difficulty  was  "  attainable  by  regarding 


172  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

it  as  a  simple  case  where  a  contract  from  changed 
circumstances  l  cannot  be  fulfilled  exactly  as  made." 
Here  again  the  obvious  answer  was  that  though  this 
solution  was  a  simple, "  it  was  not  just  unless  accom 
panied  by  the  admission  that  the  other  parties  to  the 
repudiated  contract  were  no  longer  to  be  bound  by  it 
in  any  particular.  Truly  the  days  of  compromise 
were  at  an  end.  The  dominating  element  at  the  North 
was  determined  not  to  grant  redress,  and  no  adjust 
ment  was  possible. 

The  radicals  at  the  South  now  appeared  to  be 
equally  determined  not  to  be  satisfied  even  if  redress 
were  granted.  Stephens  well  said  that  certain  Southern 
leaders  were  disunionists  per  se  and  preferred  not  to 
remain  in  the  Union  on  any  terms.  He  might  well 
have  added  that  one  of  these  was  his  friend,  Robert 
Toombs,  who,  on  December  22,  1860,  telegraphed  from 
Washington  to  his  "fellow  citizens  of  Georgia  "  that 
secession  ' '  should  be  thundered  forth  from  the  ballot- 
box  by  the  united  voice"  of  that  State,  and  then, 
without  waiting  to  know  the  issue  of  Georgia's  secession 
convention  called  to  meet  on  January  16th,  delivered 
on  January  9th  his  farewell  speech  to  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States.  Toombs  spoke  defiantly  and 
passionately,  but  his  demands  were  just.  Slavery 
was  an  evil  in  reality  as  well  as  in  the  Northern  view, 
but  all  the  appeals  in  the  world  to  a  "  higher  law ' '  could 
not  dispose  of  Constitutional  obligations  resting  upon 
all  the  States  alike,  or  displace  the  fact  that  the  nulli 
fying  "  personal  liberty"  laws  of  the  Northern  States 

1  Change  of  conditions  as  well  as  of  sentiment  was  involved.  See 
ante,  p.  59,  foot-note  referring  to  the  great  number  of  slaves  in  some 
of  the  Northern  States  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted. 


GEOEGIA  SECEDES  173 

were  a  deliberate  violation  of  the  "  compact "  of 
Union.  The  Constitution  might  be  regarded  as  a 
"covenant  with  hell,77  but  nevertheless  it  stood  and 
was  to  be  obeyed  until  abolished  or  radically  amended. 
Toombs,  therefore,  was  supported  by  the  facts  when 
he  exclaimed  :  u  You  will  not  regard  confederate  obli 
gations — you  will  not  regard  Constitutional  obligations 
— you  will  not  regard  your  oaths  ! J '  But  Toombs  was 
not  Georgia,  and  he  had  no  right  to  declare  that  t  i  we 
will  trust  to  the  blood  of  the  brave  and  the  God  of 
battles ' 7  before  the  State  had  accepted  that  hazard  by 
passing  her  ordinance  of  secession.  Not  to  follow  but 
to  lead  his  State  out  of  the  Union  was  his  evident  de 
termination. 

Governor  Brown  also  anticipated  Georgia's  action 
when,  on  January  2d,  he  ordered  Colonel  Lawton,  of 
the  First  Eegiment  of  the  State  militia,  to  take  and 
hold  Fort  Pulaski  at  Savannah,  which  was  done 
accordingly  on  the  next  day.  In  justification  of 
this  seizure  of  a  United  States  fort,  Governor  Brown 
pointed  to  information  received  ' '  on  high  authority ' ' 
to  the  effect  that  the  government  at  Washington  had 
"  decided  on  the  policy  of  coercing  a  seceding  State 
back  into  the  Union";  but  Georgia  was  not  yet  a  se 
ceding  State,  and  would  not  be  one  if  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  Benjamin  H.  Hill,  and  ex- Governor  Herschel 
V.  Johnson,  three  of  her  ablest  men,  could  prevent  it. 
Governor  Brown  promptly  notified  the  governors  of 
Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  by  tele 
graph  of  what  he  had  done,  and  "  received  strong  en 
dorsements  of  his  course  in  reply  and  the  intimation 
that  his  example  should  be  immediately  followed."  1 

1 1.  W.  Avery,  History  of  Georgia,  p.  147. 


174  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

This  seizure  of  Fort  Pulaski,  without  resistance  on 
the  part  of  the  garrison  and  without  the  firing  of  a 
gun,  three  months  and  nine  days  before  Fort  Sumter 
at  Charleston  was  shelled  and  taken  by  assault,  seems 
to  have  escaped  the  notice  of  the  average  historian 
who  begins  the  record  of  aggressive  action  with  the 
latter  event.  The  United  States  revenue  cutter 
Dobbin  was  seized  in  the  Savannah  River  by  l '  unau 
thorized  persons  "  on  the  same  day,  but  this  action  was 
promptly  disavowed  by  Governor  Brown  and  by  his 
order  the  vessel  was  surrendered  to  the  United  States 
collector  of  the  port.  Too  little  has  been  made  of  this 
incident  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Pulaski  by  order  of  a 
secessionist  governor,  for  if  the  garrison  had  resisted 
even  by  no  more  than  the  firing  of  a  few  shots  into  the 
air,  the  war  would  have  begun  in  Georgia  instead  of 
in  South  Carolina,  and  three  months  earlier. 

The  resolute  character  of  Georgia's  governor  and  his 
confiding  belief  in  the  sovereignty  and  independence 
of  his  State  were  again  strikingly  displayed  a  month 
later.  On  January  22,  1861,  the  New  York  police 
seized  two  hundred  muskets  that  were  about  to  be 
shipped  to  a  firm  in  Macon  and  placed  them  in  the 
State  arsenal.  Being  appealed  to  by  the  Macon  firm, 
Governor  Brown  telegraphed  on  February  2d  to  Gov 
ernor  Morgan,  of  New  York,  demanding  that  the  guns 
be  immediately  given  up  to  an  agent  in  New  York 
City,  whom  he  appointed  to  receive  them.  There 
being  no  reply,  Governor  Brown  on  February  4th  tele 
graphed  to  the  operator  at  Albany  to  learn  if  his  dis 
patch  had  been  delivered,  and  was  promptly  informed 
that  it  had.  Thereupon  he  telegraphed  to  Colonel 
H.  E.  Jackson  to  order  out  a  sufficient  military  force 


GEOEGIA  SECEDES  175 

to  seize  and  hold  subject  to  his  later  instructions  every 
ship  in  the  harbor  of  Savannah  belonging  to  citizens  of 
New  Y"ork.  After  issuing  this  order  Governor  Brown 
received  a  dispatch  from  Governor  Morgan  of  an 
evasive  character  evidently  intended  to  gain  time  for 
consideration.  On  February  8th  Colonel  Jackson  seized 
three  brigs,  one  schooner  and  one  bark  in  the 
Savannah  harbor.  Governor  Morgan  was  then  offi 
cially  informed  of  what  had  been  done,  and  apparently 
there  was  an  end  of  further  hesitation. 

On  February  9th  Governor  Brown's  agent  in  New 
York  notified  him  that  the  guns  had  been  placed  sub 
ject  to  the  order  of  the  owners.  The  incident  being 
closed,  or  so  appearing,  he  at  once  ordered  the  re 
lease  of  the  vessels  that  had  been  seized.  But  by  this 
time  the  affair  had  been  widely  discussed,  strong  pres 
sure  was  brought  to  bear  on  the  governor  of  New  York, 
and  when  the  agent  sought  to  take  possession  of  the 
guns  he  was  informed  that  they  were  not  to  be  given 
up.  Therefore  on  February  21st  Governor  Brown, 
greatly  incensed,  ordered  another  seizure  of  ships  in 
the  Savannah  harbor,  declaring  that  this  time  they 
should  be  held  until  the  guns  were  on  their  way 
south.  On  February  25th  he  notified  Governor 
Morgan  that  if  they  were  not  released  and  actually 
shipped  from  New  York  by  the  25th  of  March  the 
detained  vessels  would  on  that  day  be  sold  in  Savannah 
to  the  highest  bidder  and  the  money  employed  to  in 
demnify  the  owners  of  the  unlawfully  captured  arms. 
One  vessel,  found  laden  with  cotton  belonging  to 
British  and  Eussian  subjects,  was  released,  but  two 
others  were  held  and  their  coming  sale  on  March  25th 
was  advertised  in  the  newspapers.  This  produced  the 


176  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

desired  effect,  for  on  March  18th  the  news  was  received 
from  New  York  that  the  guns  had  been  finally  sur 
rendered  and  were  then  on  the  road  to  Georgia.  Thus 
terminated  this  remarkable  incident  with  the  complete 
triumph  of  the  Southern  governor,  who  thereupon 
ordered  the  immediate  release  of  the  two  ships.1 

In  the  presidential  election  of  1860  the  Unionists  of 
Georgia  were  divided  between  Douglas  and  Bell,  the 
Breckinridge  platform  attracting  all  inclined  toward 
secession.  The  vote  indicated  a  majority  against  dis 
union,  but  after  the  election  of  Lincoln  the  current  set 
strongly  the  other  way.  Many  county  meetings  were 
immediately  held  and  resolutions,  urging  action, 
were  adopted,  and  sent  to  the  General  Assembly.  The 
meeting  at  Savannah,  under  the  lead  of  Francis  S. 
Bartow,  called  for  measures  to  arm  the  forces  of  the 
State.  A  convention  of  military  companies  resolved 
that  "Georgia  can  no  longer  remain  in  the  Union 
consistently  with  her  safety  and  best  interests,"  and 
endorsed  the  recommendation  of  Governor  Brown  that 
there  should  be  an  appropriation  of  a  million  dollars 
for  military  purposes.  Many  counties  took  no  action, 
but  of  the  more  than  forty  that  transmitted  resolutions 
to  the  legislature,  a  large  majority  demanded  secession. 
Some  of  the  others,  however,  put  forth  "  eloquent  and 
prophetic  appeals  and  pleas  for  union." 2  Greene 
County,  for  example,  opposed  any  hasty  action  because 
the  election  of  Lincoln  was  constitutional,  because  the 
South  was  not  yet  united,  because  it  was  right  to  give 
the  North  time  to  take  action  looking  toward  a  redress 
of  Southern  grievances ;  because  the  masses  of  the 

1 1.  W.  A  very,  History  of  Georgia,  pp.  171-179. 
p.  135. 


GEORGIA  SECEDES  177 

Southern  people  were  not  ready  for  secession,  they 
were  not  ready  for  war,  no  serious  effort  toward  recon 
ciliation  had  been  made,  and  they  owed  a  duty  to 
mankind  to  preserve  the  American  republic  and  its 
genius  j  because  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  even  if 
proper,  ought  to  be  accomplished  with  soberness  and 
deliberation  and  after  all  endeavors  to  preserve  it  had 
failed,  including  a  State  convention,  and  then  a  South 
ern  convention  which  should  temperately  but  firmly 
recall  the  North  to  its  duty,  and  make  a  last,  earnest 
and  united  effort  to  secure  an  equitable  adjustment. 
The  final  utterance  of  these  admirable  resolutions  read 
as  follows : 

"Resolved,  That  in  view  of  the  great  and  solemn 
crisis  which  is  upon  us,  we  request  our  fellow  citizens 
to  unite  with  us  in  prayer  to  Almighty  God  that  He 
would  deliver  us  from  discord  and  disunion,  and  above 
all,  from  civil  war  and  from  bloodshed ;  and  that  He 
would  so  guide  our  counsels  and  actions  that  we  may 
be  able  to  maintain  our  rights  without  revolution." 

The  modern  student  marvels  that  even  the  most 
radical  partisans  in  the  delinquent  Northern  States 
were  not  ready  to  stop  and  listen  to  such  noble  and 
patriotic  utterances  as  these,  and,  under  their  in 
fluence,  to  be  induced  to  express  a  willingness  to  take 
the  proper  course.  And  their  proper  course  was  to 
annul  their  unconstitutional  " personal  liberty"  laws 
and  then  work  with  all  their  might  and  main  for  the 
repeal  of  that  provision  of  the  Constitution  which  they 
had  so  long  refused  to  obey. 

Even  the  resolutions  from  some  of  the  secession  coun 
ties  deprecated  hasty  action.  Those  from  Dougherty, 


178  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

for  example,  declared  that  "it  would  be  monstrous  if 
a  single  Southern  State,  without  consultation  and  by 
separate  action,  should  attempt  to  decide  the  great 
question  that  now  presses  upon  the  South,  not  only  for 
herself,  but  for  her  remaining  fourteen  sister  States. " 
This  " monstrous"  thing  is  precisely  what  happened, 
but  in  view  of  the  accepted  theory  of  separate  State 
sovereignty  it  was  inevitable.  Had  South  Carolina 
been  less  precipitate,  it  may  be  that  concerted  action 
could  have  been  arranged,  but  this  was  perhaps  too 
much  to  expect  at  a  time  when  the  public  pulse  was  at 
fever  heat.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  resolu 
tions  of  Eichmond  County  were  adopted  in  a  court 
house,  over  which  waved  a  white  flag  with  a  single  star 
and  this  significant  inscription  thereon  :  u  Georgia — 
Equality  in  or  Independence  out  of  the  Union." 

Georgia's  secession  convention  assembled  on  January 
16,  1861.  The  result  was  already  foreshadowed,  for 
the  vote  for  delegates  showed  an  aggregate  of  50, 243 
for  and  37,123  against  secession,  giving  a  majority  of 
13,120,  which  was  nearly  5,000  less  than  the  18,000 
majority  against  disunion  in  Georgia  in  1851,  when 
Howell  Cobb — now  conspicuously  in  favor  of  the  dis 
solution  of  the  Union — was  triumphantly  elected 
governor  on  the  anti- secession  ticket.  A  few  counties 
in  the  State  were  nearly  unanimous  for  secession  and 
no  opposition  candidate  was  put  in  the  field.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  Stephens' s  county  of  Taliaferro  and  in 
Tatnall  not  a  vote  was  cast  for  secession.  The  con 
vention  has  been  described  as  the  ablest  that  ever  as 
sembled  in  the  State,  its  membership  including  nearly 
every  leading  public  man  in  the  commonwealth.  Ex- 
Governor  George  W.  Crawford  presided.  The  chief 


GEOEGIA  SECEDES  179 

secession  champions  were  Eobert  Toombs,  T.  E.  E. 
Cobb,  Judge  Nisbet,  Judge  Eeese,  and  Francis  S. 
Bartow.  Governor  Joseph  E.  Brown  and  ex-Governor 
Howell  Cobb,  both  secessionists,  were  invited  to  oc 
cupy  seats  on  the  floor.  The  leading  unionists  were 
Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Benjamin  H.  Hill,  ex-Gov 
ernor  Herschel  V.  Johnson,  Alexander  Means,  and 
Linton  Stephens,  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
State.  The  friends  of  the  Union  regarded  it  as  un 
fortunate  that  the  elder  Stephens,  Hill  and  Johnson 
went  into  the  convention  and  fought  the  battle  with 
out  a  concerted  plan.  This,  it  is  said,  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  Stephens  and  Hill  had  not  been  on  speaking 
terms  for  years — not  since  1856  when  they  quarreled 
bitterly  and  the  latter  refused  to  fight  a  duel  with 
Stephens.  In  addition  to  this  lack  of  union  and  coun 
sel  between  these  two  leaders,  Herschel  V.  Johnson, 
ordinarily  a  very  able  speaker,  was  not  at  his  best. 
According  to  a  story  current  in  Georgia  as  late  as 
1904,  his  " lemonade"  was  tampered  with  by  a 
secessionist  agent.  A  dispatch  from  Crawfordville  in 
1893,  when  the  Stephens  monument  was  unveiled, 
signed  by  James  Callaway,  asserts  that  "  secession 
was  carried  by  log-rolling."  But  no  such  suggestions 
are  needed  in  explanation  of  the  defeat  of  the  unionist 
cause  in  a  convention  with  a  clear  majority  of  delegates 
virtually  instructed  for  secession.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  unionists  were  discouraged  from  the  outset, 
while  the  secessionists,  conscious  of  strength,  were 
confident  and  aggressive. 

The  convention  was  first  addressed  by  commissioners 
from  South  Carolina  and  Alabama,  explaining  the 
attitude  of  those  States  and  seeking  cooperation  in 


180  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

the  revolutionary  movement.  On  January  18th  Judge 
Eugenius  A.  Nisbet  brought  in  a  resolution  "that  in 
the  opinion  of  this  convention  it  is  the  right  and  duty 
of  Georgia  to  secede  from  the  Union."  Ex-Governor 
Johnson,  acting  in  concert  with  Stephens,  offered  a 
substitute  proposing  to  delay  the  issue  by  inviting  all 
the  Southern  States  still  in  the  Union,  and  u  the  in 
dependent  republics  of  South  Carolina,  Florida, 
Alabama  and  Mississippi,77  to  send  delegates  to  a 
Congress  at  Atlanta  on  February  16,  1861,  to  consider 
the  situation  and  determine  a  course  of  action.  This 
resolution,  which  covered  many  points,  agreed  that 
Georgia  should  join  the  seceded  States  in  resistance 
if  an  attempt  to  coerce  them  were  made,  and  that 
if  all  efforts  to  arrive  at  an  equitable  adjustment 
failed  she  would  engage  to  secede  and  join  informing 
a  Southern  Confederacy.  In  the  debate  the  secession 
ists  urgently  contended  that  "we  can  make  better 
terms  out  of  the  Union  than  in  it77 — and  this  single 
idea  eloquently  reiterated  did  more  to  carry  the  con 
vention,  in  the  opinion  of  Stephens,  than  all  the  other 
arguments  combined.  The  answer  of  the  unionists, 
as  made  by  him,  was  that  the  time  for  such  a 
radical  and  irrevocable  step  had  not  come. 

"We  should  not,77  [he  said]  "take  this  extreme 
step  before  some  positive  aggression  upon  our  rights 
by  the  general  government,  which  may  never  occur  ; 
or  until  we  fail,  after  effort  made,  to  get  a  faithful  per 
formance  of  the  Constitutional  obligations  on  the  part 
of  those  confederate  States  which  now  stand  so 
derelict  in  their  plighted  faith.  I  have  been,  and  am 
still  opposed  to  secession  as  a  remedy  against  antici 
pated  aggressions  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Executive 
or  Congress.  I  have  held  and  do  now  hold  that  the 


GEOKGIA  SECEDES  181 

point  of  resistance  should  be  the  point  of  aggres 
sion.  ...  I  have  ever  believed  and  do  now  be 
lieve  that  it  is  to  the  interest  of  all  the  States  to  be 
and  remain  united  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  with  a  faithful  performance  by  each  of  its  Con 
stitutional  obligations.  If  the  Union  could  be  main 
tained  on  this  basis  and  on  these  principles,  I  think  it 
would  be  best  for  the  security,  the  liberty,  happiness, 
and  common  prosperity  of  all.  I  do  further  feel  con 
fident  that  if  Georgia  would  now  stand  firm,  and  unite 
with  the  Border  States  to  obtain  a  redress  of  those 
grievances  on  the  part  of  some  of  their  Northern 
confederates,  whereof  they  have  such  just  cause  to 
complain,  complete  success  would  attend  the  effort — 
our  just  and  reasonable  demands  would  be  granted. 
.  .  .  My  judgment  is  against  the  policy  of  im 
mediate  secession  for  any  existing  causes  ;  but  if  the 
judgment  of  the  majority  of  this  convention,  embody 
ing  as  it  does  the  sovereignty  of  Georgia,  be  against 
mine  ...  I  shall  bow  in  submission  to  that 
decision.'7 


The  character  of  the  debate  on  the  secession  side 
justified  the  later  declaration  of  Toombs  that  "the 
question  of  slavery  moved  not  the  people  of  Georgia 
half  as  much  as  the  fact  that  their  rights  as  a  com 
munity  were  insulted, " — adding  :  "  There  are  tens  of 
thousands  of  people  in  Georgia  who  do  not  own  slaves, 
a  very  large  portion  of  the  people  own  none  of  them. 
But  these  [non-slaveholding]  sons  of  Georgia  are  ex 
celled  by  none  of  their  countrymen  in  loyalty  to  their 
rights  and  to  the  honor  and  glory  of  the  common 
wealth." 

After  the  debate  the  previous  question  was  called 
and  sustained,  bringing  before  the  convention  Judge 
Nisbet's  secession  resolution,  which  passed  by  a  vote 


182  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

of  166  yeas  to  130  nays.  This  was  a  significantly 
narrow  majority,  considering  the  boast  of  the  dis- 
unionists  that  Georgia  was  united  for  secession.  If 
Stephens' s  conservative  and  sound  policy  had  pre 
vailed  in  Georgia,  if  that  important  State  had  then 
undertaken  the  role  of  peacemaker,  and  her  attitude 
had  been  supported  by  promised  concessions  on  the 
part  of  the  delinquent  Northern  States,  it  is  probable 
that  at  least  a  temporary  adjustment  would  have  been 
reached.  Georgia's  action  made  certain  a  formidable 
confederacy,  and  the  vote  on  Judge  Nisbet's  resolution 
decided  the  momentous  question  which  was  destined 
to  influence  the  course  of  American  history  for  many 
years  and  perhaps  for  a  century.  The  fateful  ordi 
nance  reported  by  the  appointed  committee  and  twice 
read  before  the  convention  was  as  follows  : 

"AN  ORDINANCE 

"To  dissolve  the  Union  between  the  State  of  Georgia 
and  other  States  united  with  her  under  a  com 
pact  of  Government  entitled  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  of  America. 

"  We  the  people  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  in  Convention 
assembled,  do  declare  and  ordain,  and  it  is  hereby 
declared  and  ordained  : 

"That  the  ordinance  adopted  by  the  people  of  the 
State  of  Georgia  in  convention  on  the  second  day  of 
January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1788,  whereby  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  of  America  was  as 
sented  to,  ratified  and  adopted ;  and  also  all  acts  and 
parts  of  acts  of  the  General  Assembly  of  this  State 
ratifying  and  adopting  amendments  of  the  said  Consti 
tution,  are  hereby  repealed,  rescinded  and  abrogated. 
"  We  do  further  declare  and  ordain,  That  the  Union 
now  subsisting  between  the  State  of  Georgia  and  other 
States,  under  the  name  of  the  United  States  of  America, 


GEOEGIA  SECEDES  183 

is  hereby  dissolved,  and  that  the  State  of  Georgia  is  in 
full  possession  and  exercise  of  all  those  rights  of  sov 
ereignty  which  belong  and  appertain  to  a  free  and 
independent  State." 

Benjamin  H.  Hill  moved,  as  a  substitute  for  the 
ordinance,  the  resolution  that  had  been  offered  by 
ex-Governor  Johnson.  A  vote  followed  of  133  yeas 
and  164  nays.  The  passage  of  the  ordinance  was  then 
moved  and  the  vote  thereon  was  208  yeas  to  89  nays, 
showing  that  forty-four  unionists  had  now  turned  to 
secession  as  the  only  possible  course.  Among  these 
forty-four  was  Benjamin  H.  Hill,  but  Stephens,  his 
step -brother  Linton  and  ex- Governor  Johnson  voted 
against  secession  to  the  last.  It  was  moved  that  all 
members  of  the  convention,  even  those  who  voted 
against  it,  sign  the  ordinance  as  a  pledge  of  u  the  unani 
mous  determination  of  this  convention  to  sustain  and 
defend  the  State  in  this  her  chosen  remedy."  This 
motion  was  adopted,  and  on  January  21st,  the  paper  was 
signed  by  all  the  delegates  (six  of  them  under  written 
protest)  in  the  presence  of  the  governor,  the  State  offi 
cials,  and  a  throng  of  spectators.  No  sooner  had  the 
ordinance  been  passed  than  the  flag  of  the  Union  was 
lowered  from  the  State  Capitol  and  the  white  colonial 
flag  of  Georgia  took  its  place.  The  news  spread  at 
once  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  State  and  every 
where  there  were  uproarious  expressions  of  popular 
excitement  and  satisfaction.  Describing  the  effect  of 
the  passage  of  the  ordinance  in  Milledgeville,  the  capi 
tal  city  itself,  the  Atlanta  Intelligencer  said  : 

"  There  was  an  exultant  shout,  and  men  breathed 
freer  and  looked  nobler,  and  felt  more  like  freemen 
who  had  burst  the  shackles  that  had  enslaved  them 


184  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

for  years.  From  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Bepresenta- 
tives  the  news  of  the  momentous  event  soon  reached 
the  vast  and  excited  multitude  outside,  who  had 
crowded  to  Milledgeville,  most  of  them  with  the  patri 
otic  intent  to  urge  upon  the  convention  Georgia's  right 
and  duty  to  secede.  The  people  shouted,  the  bells 
were  rung,  the  cannon  roared,  the  city  was  illuminated 
and  great  was  the  rejoicing." 

And  those  who  shook  their  heads  and  looked  anx 
iously  into  the  future  were  forgotten.  The  confidence 
of  the  home-keeping  masses  of  the  South  in  that  sec 
tion's  success,  in  the  event  of  war  with  the  North,  can 
be  readily  understood ;  but  this  attitude  on  the  part 
of  the  wealthier,  better  informed  and  traveled  element 
passes  understanding.  For  it  was  to  be  a  war  between 
a  relatively  poor  and  undeveloped  group  of  agricultural 
States  and  a  rich  and  industrially  advanced  section 
with  a  white  population  four  times  as  great,  and  which, 
moreover,  had  the  advantage  of  controlling  all  the 
machinery  of  the  Federal  government.  The  leaders 
of  secession  made  light  of  the  prospect  of  war,  and 
certainly  it  was  to  their  interest  to  do  so,  whether 
they  were  perfectly  sincere  in  this  or  not,  whether 
they  were  or  were  not  impressed  by  Stephens' s  warn 
ing  that  the  Northern  States  would  resist  the  disrup 
tion  of  the  Union  even  to  the  extent  of  a  protracted 
and  bloody  conflict. 

Had  the  masses  at  the  South  believed  war  to  be  an 
inevitable  result  of  secession,  had  they  been  gifted 
with  an  intelligent  understanding  of  the  great  odds 
against  them,  they  would  probably  have  been  more 
inclined  to  listen  to  the  counsels  of  such  conservative 
men  as  Stephens  and  to  cast  their  votes  accordingly. 


GEOBGIA  SECEDES  185 

The  determination  of  a  brave  people  to  seek  their  in 
dependence  at  all  hazards  and  against  all  odds  is 
comprehensible,  but  the  light-hearted  confidence  of  a 
majority  of  the  Southern  people  can  only  be  set  down 
to  ignorance  of  the  true  conditions,  to  a  misguided 
underestimate  of  the  determination  as  well  as  of  the 
resources  of  their  opponents,  and  to  the  persuasions  of 
leaders  who  were  either  less  sure  of  ultimate  success 
than  they  appeared  to  be  or  were  singularly  deluded. 


CHAPTEE  XI 

SEVENTY  YEABS  OF  DISUNION 

IT  is  appropriate  at  this  point  to  depart  from  the 
current  of  events  long  enough  to  consider  the  theory 
of  the  right  of  secession,  so  firmly  upheld  even  by 
Southern  unionists  such  as  Alexander  H.  Stephens. 
Indeed,  it  is  necessary  to  do  this,  if  we  would  under 
stand  either  the  character  and  course  of  Stephens  or 
the  secession  movement  of  1860-61.  Without  such  an 
inquiry  this  volume  would  be  incomplete,  for  not  less 
than  half  of  Stephens' s  Constitutional  View  of  the  War 
Between  the  States,  his  most  important  historical  work, 
is  devoted  to  a  defense  of  the  secession  of  the  Southern 
States.  Our  space  will  not  permit  even  an  outline  of 
his  constitutional  argument,  but  we  may  note  some 
of  the  historical  facts  which  he  presents  in  support  of 
his  view  as  well  as  a  number  of  others  brought  to  light 
after  his  time  which  he  would  have  been  glad  to 
employ  for  that  purpose. 

The  theory  of  the  right  of  nullification  and  seces 
sion  was  widely  and  tenaciously  held  from  the  begin 
ning,  being  based  on  the  State  sovereignty  idea  which 
was  at  one  time  universal.  The  Constitution  itself 
was  an  unavoidable  compromise,  and  as  such  provided 
for  a  division  of  sovereignty  between  the  States  and 
the  Federal  government  which  the  States  created.  No 
observant  reader  of  the  debates  in  the  convention 
which  adopted  the  Constitution,  and  in  the  State  con- 


SEVENTY  YEAKS  OF  DISUNION         187 

ventions  which  ratified  it,  is  surprised  at  the  tendency 
manifested  in  all  sections  from  time  to  time  for  seventy 
years  to  assert  the  right  of  States  to  nullify  national 
enactments  and  even  the  right  to  sever  their  relations 
with  the  Union  whenever  self-interest  seemed  to  favor 
such  a  course. 

Prior  to  the  war  with  Great  Britain  the  thirteen 
colonies  were  no  further  connected  than  merely  as 
common  dependencies  of  the  mother  country.  They 
were  established  at  different  times,  and  some  were 
known  as  provincial,  some  as  proprietary,  and  some 
as  charter  colonies.  A  species  of  confederation  of 
some  of  the  New  England  colonies  was  formed  for 
mutual  protection  in  1643,  but  it  was  dissolved  forty 
years  later.1  The  colonies  revolted  against  and  en 
gaged  in  war  upon  Great  Britain  at  the  same  time,  but 
they  acted  separately,  adopted  separate  constitutions, 
appointed  officers  for  the  administration  of  govern 
ment  in  all  its  departments,  legislative,  executive,  and 
judicial ;  and  the  people  of  each  colony  were  chiefly 
concerned  for  the  defense  of  their  own  territory,  being 
with  difficulty  persuaded  to  fight  on  any  other  soil. 
This  was  one  of  the  most  serious  and  disheartening 
problems  that  faced  General  Washington  during  the 
war.  In  1778,  however,  the  colonies  entered  into  a 
formal  league  and  adopted  Articles  of  Confederation, 
whereby  they  agreed  to  intrust  the  administration  of 
this  league's  affairs  to  a  common  agent  which  took  the 
form  of  a  congress.  The  first  article  declared  that 
( i  each  State  retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom  and  inde 
pendence,  and  every  power,  jurisdiction  and  right 
which  is  not,  by  this  Confederation,  expressly  dele- 
1  Bancroft,  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  II,  p.  127. 


188  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

gated  to  the  United  States  in  Congress  assembled." 
The  treaty  of  peace  signed  by  Great  Britain  in  1783 
mentioned  the  thirteen  colonies  by  name  and  ac 
knowledged  them  to  be  "free,  sovereign  and  inde 
pendent  States." 

Eleven  States  ratified  the  Articles  and  entered  the 
Confederation  in  1778.  Delaware  did  not  come  in 
until  1779,  and  Maryland  not  until  1781,  five  years 
after  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  when  the 
war  was  near  its  end.  These  latter  surely  exercised 
the  deliberation  of  independent  States,  notwithstand 
ing  Judge  Story's  remarkable  theory  that  the  people 
of  the  revolting  colonies  formed  a  nation  even  before 
the  adoption  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  Ac 
cording  to  another  authority,  writing  in  1854,  "  the 
parties  to  this  instrument  were  free,  sovereign  political 
communities,  each  possessing  within  itself  all  the 
powers  of  legislation  and  government  which  any 
political  society  can  possess."  '  Motley,  in  1861,  also 
took  this  view  of  the  Confederation,  although  he  con 
tended  that  the  league  became  a  nation  when  the 
States  ratified  the  Constitution.  "The  Continental 
Congress, ' '  says  he,  "  which  was  the  central  administra 
tive  board  during  this  epoch,  was  a  diet  of  envoys 
from  sovereign  States.  It  had  no  power  to  act  on 
individuals.  It  could  not  command  the  States.  It 
could  move  only  by  requisitions  and  recommenda 
tions.  .  .  .  We  were  a  league  of  petty  sovereign 
ties."  3  If  we  accept  this  as  true,  we  must  also  ac 
cept  Stephens' s  assertion  that  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  was  a  joint  act  of  all  the  colonies ;  that  the 

1  Curtis  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  I,  p.  142. 
8  The  Rebellion  Record  (Putnam,  1861),  Vol.  I,  p.  210. 


SEVENTY  YEAKS  OF  DISUNION         189 

Congress  that  made  it  was  a  congress  of  States  as 
States  ;  that  the  Declaration  "  was  made  by  the  people 
of  each  colony,  for  each  colony,  through  representa 
tives  acting  by  the  paramount  authority  of  each  colony 
separately  and  respectively.7' l  Massachusetts  in 
structed  and  empowered  her  delegates  so  to  act  in 
January,  1776 ;  South  Carolina  in  March  j  Ehode 
Island  and  Virginia  in  May  ;  New  Hampshire,  Con 
necticut,  New  Jersey  and  Maryland  in  June.  The 
instructions  from  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  did 
not  arrive  until  after  July  1st,  and  not  until  full  powers 
had  been  received  from  all  the  States  was  the  Dec 
laration  given  to  the  world  on  the  fourth  of  that 
month.3 

In  this  connection  Stephens  cites  Peters' s  Condensed 
Reports  to  show  that  in  1805  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  in  the  case  of  Mcllvaine  vs.  Coxe,  held 
that  "  on  the  fourth  of  October,  1776,  the  State  of  New 
Jersey  was  completely  a  sovereign,  independent 
State  .  .  .  [with  the]  right  to  compel  the  inhabit 
ants  of  the  State  to  become  citizens  thereof"  ;  and 
that  Chief- Justice  Marshall,  in  the  case  of  Gibbons  vs. 
Ogden,  in  1824,  described  as  "true"  the  assertion 
that  the  States,  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  "  were  sovereign,  were  completely  independent, 
and  were  connected  with  each  other  only  by  a 
league."3  The  argument  that  this  "league  "was  a 
nation  is  clearly  no  more  than  the  afterthought  of 
partisans.  The  argument  that  the  Constitution  later 

1  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  I,  p.  67. 

2  Bancroft,  Vol.  VIII,  pp.  449,  450,  475. 

8  Stephens,  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  I,  pp.  76,  80.  Petere'e  Re 
ports,  Vol.  V,  p.  565. 


190  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

formed  and  adopted  for  the  sake  of  a  "more  perfect 
Union  "  changed  the  original  independent  status  of  the 
States  has  a  much  less  attenuated  basis.  If  the  States 
were  sovereign  and  independent  when  they  adopted 
the  Articles  of  Confederation,  and  if  these  articles 
made  them  only  a  u league,'7  as  Chief- Justice  Marshall 
and  many  other  authorities  held,  they  were  sovereign 
and  independent  when  they  ratified  the  Constitution. 
The  question  is,  therefore,  did  they  by  such  ratifica 
tion  transfer  sovereignty  to  the  central  government 
and  give  up  their  independence  entirely,  or  only  in 
part,  or  did  they  merely  confer  certain  powers  on  the 
central  government  and  reserve  paramount  powers  to 
themselves  I 

The  debates  at  the  time  and  for  seventy  years  after 
ward  show  that  this  question  was  never  fully,  defi 
nitely  and  finally  answered  until  the  issue  of  the  war 
of  1861-5  was  known.  Throughout  that  period  lead 
ing  statesmen  contended  for  the  paramount  powers  of 
the  central  government,  while  other,  and  apparently 
a  larger  number  of  prominent  statesmen  contended 
for  the  paramount  powers  of  the  States,  each  party 
being  able  to  point  to  facts  of  history  and  to  utterances 
of  the  Constitution  which  seemed  to  confirm  their 
view.  The  Constitution — a  compromise  of  opposing 
factions — gave  more  power  to  the  Federal  government 
than  some  of  the  State  leaders  believed  it  did,  or  were 
willing  to  yield,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  gave  less 
than  other  State  leaders  desired  it  to  give  and  less 
than  they  thought  would  be  necessary  for  a  govern 
ment  that  could  live. 

Thus  Patrick  Henry,  who  saw  national  features  in 
the  Constitution,  warned  the  Virginians  of  "the  awful 


SEVENTY  YEARS  OF  DISUNION         191 

immensity  of  the  dangers  with  which  it  is  pregnant."  l 
He  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  "it  squints  toward 
monarchy,"  u  and  urged  the  people  of  his  State  in 
the  ratifying  convention  to  be  "  extremely  cautious, 
watchful,  jealous  of  your  liberties  ;  for  instead  of  se 
curing  your  rights  you  may  lose  them  forever."  And 
further :  "What  right  had  they  to  say,  '  We,  the  people '  f 
Who  authorized  them  to  speak  the  language  of  i  We,  the 
people  >  instead  of  i  We,  the  States '  1  If  the  States  be 
not  the  agents  of  this  compact,  it  must  be  one  great 
consolidated  National  Government  of  all  the  States."  3 
In  vain  did  Edmund  Pendleton,  president  of  Virginia's 
ratifying  convention,  who  favored  the  Constitution, 
answer  that,  if  necessary,  "we  will  assemble  in  con 
vention,  wholly  recall  our  delegated  powers,  or  reform 
them  so  as  to  prevent  such  abuse, ' '  and  further  urge  : 
"  There  is  no  quarrel  between  government  and  liberty  j 
the  former  is  the  shield  and  protector  of  the  latter."  4 
In  vain  did  John  Marshall  recall  "the  maxim  that 
those  who  give  may  take  away."  5  In  vain  did  Gov 
ernor  Eandolph  declare  that  "  every  power  not  given 
it  [the  Federal  government]  by  this  system  is  left  with 
the  States."6  In  vain  did  Madison  urge  that  "the 
powers  of  the  general  government  .  .  .  are  but 
few  .  .  .  which  will  be  exercised  mostly  in  time 
of  war."  7  Patrick  Henry  did  not  believe  that  it 
would  be  so  easy  to  take  back  what  had  been  once 
given  away,  particularly  when,  as  he  was  convinced, 
so  much  was  given  ;  and,  supported  by  George  Mason, 
he  remained  the  Cassandra  of  Virginia's  great  ratify- 

1  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  625.  2 Ibid.,  p.  58. 

8  Ibid.,  pp.  21-22.  *Ibid.,  p.  37. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  233.  6  Ibid.,  p.  203.  '  Ibid.,  pp.  259-60. 


192  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

ing  convention.  It  was  to  pacify  him  and  other  fear 
ful  State  patriots  that  at  the  first  Congress  in  1789  ten 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  were  adopted,  the 
tenth  declaring  that  "the  powers  not  delegated  to  the 
United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by 
it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively, 
or  to  the  people. " 

Unlike  Patrick  Henry,  Alexander  Hamilton  thought 
the  Constitution  gave  the  Federal  government  powers 
so  limited  that  the  system  based  thereon  could  not  en 
dure.  In  this  particular  he  regarded  that  instrument 
as  radically  defective.  "  Perhaps,"  he  said,  writing 
to  Gouverneur  Morris  in  1802,  * l  no  man  in  the  United 
States  has  sacrificed  or  done  more  for  the  present 
Constitution  than  myself;  and  contrary  to  all  my 
anticipations  of  its  fate,  as  you  know,  from  the  be 
ginning,  I  am  still  laboring  to  prop  the  frail  and 
worthless  fabric."  '  He  plainly  thought  the  Constitu 
tion  no  very  great  improvement  on  the  Articles  of 
Confederation. 

After  a  careful  comparison  of  the  two  instruments, 
Stephens  concludes  that  there  were  but  two  important 
additional  powers  delegated  by  the  States,  through  the 
Constitution,  and  these  were  "the  power  to  regulate 
trade  with  foreign  nations  and  between  the  States" 
and  "  the  power  to  lay  taxes  directly  upon  the  people 
of  the  several  States,  or  to  raise  revenue  by  levying 
duties  upon  imports,  without  resorting  to  requisitions 
upon  the  States."  J  There  was,  however,  still  another 
important  change,  which  Jefferson  in  a  letter  to  Madi 
son  from  France  in  1786  thus  suggested  :  "To  enable 

1  Hamilton1 8  Works,  Vol.  VI,  p.  530. 
"Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  I,  p.  88. 


SEVENTY  YEARS  OF  DISUNION         193 

the  Federal  head  to  exercise  the  powers  given  it  to  the 
best  advantage,  it  should  be  organized  as  the  particular 
ones  [State  governments]  are,  into  Legislative,  Execu 
tive  and  Judiciary."  l  An  examination  will  show  that 
the  powers  granted  the  Confederation  were  really  ex 
tensive  and  that  its  weakness  resulted  less  from  what 
was  lacking  in  this  respect  than  from  the  jealousies  of 
the  States  and  their  unwillingness  to  recognize  Con 
gressional  rulings  as  binding.  Stephens  cites  EllioVs 
Debates  as  authority  for  the  significant  fact  that  Con 
gress  appealed  in  vain  to  the  States  in  1781,  1783  and 
again  in  1784  for  power  to  levy  duties  on  certain  im 
ports,  and  that  not  until  Madison  took  up  the  project 
in  the  Virginia  Assembly  in  1785-6  did  it  have  any 
prospect  of  success.2  Virginia's  recommendations  led 
to  a  convention,  at  Annapolis  in  1786,  of  commissioners 
from  five  States  who  proposed  a  general  convention 
of  all  the  States  at  Philadelphia  in  the  following  year 
"  to  devise  such  further  provisions  as  shall  .  .  . 
render  the  Constitution  of  the  Federal  government 
adequate  to  the  exigencies  of  the  Union."  s  Not  until 
after  all  this  did  Congress  "  resolve,"  in  February, 
1787,  that  in  its  " opinion"  it  was  u  expedient"  that 
all  the  States  send  delegates  to  the  proposed  conven 
tion  ' '  for  the  sole  and  express  purpose  of  revising  the 
Articles  of  Confederation."  Thus  was  brought  about 
the  memorable  convention  that  produced  our  present 
Constitution. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Georgia's  commissions 
to  the  six  delegates,  William  Few,  Abraham  Baldwin, 

1  Jefferson's  Complete  Works,  Vol.  II,  p.  66. 
1  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  I,  pp.  92,  93,  111. 
*Ibid.,  p.  118. 


194  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

William  Pierce,  George  Walton,  Nathaniel  Pendleton, 
and  William  Houston,  appointed  to  attend  the  con 
vention  of  1787  "  for  the  purpose  of  revising  the 
Federal  Constitution,"  all  begin  as  follows:  "The 
State  of  Georgia,  by  the  grace  of  God,  Free,  Sovereign 
and  Independent — To  the  Hon.  William  Few,  Esq.," 
etc.,  etc.  And  they  are  signed  by  Governor  Matthews 
"  under  his  hand  and  our  great  seal,  the  17th  day  of 
April,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1787,  and  of  our 
Sovereignty  and  Independence  the  eleventh."  l  Gov 
ernor  Clinton  signed  the  commission  of  New  York's 
delegates  * '  this  ninth  day  of  May,  in  the  eleventh  year 
of  the  Independence  of  the  said  State."  Governor 
Livingston  of  New  Jersey  signed  "the  23d  day  of 
November  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1786,  and  of  our 
Sovereignty  and  Independence  the  eleventh. '  >  Thomas 
Collins,  "President,  Captain-General,  and  Commauder- 
in-Chief,  of  the  Delaware  State,"  quotes  in  his  proc 
lamation  an  act  appointing  delegates  l '  in  the  eleventh 
year  of  the  Independence  of  the  Delaware  State,"  but 
signs  "in  the  llth  year  of  the  Independence  of  the 
United  States  of  America. ' '  Massachusetts  and  South 
Carolina  are  the  only  other  States  whose  governors 
signed  "in  the  llth  year  of  the  Independence  of  the 
United  States  of  America"  instead  of  in  the  eleventh 
year  of  State  independence. 

This  claim  of  independence  continued  in  the 
language  of  State  documents  even  after  the  Constitu 
tion  had  been  adopted  and  the  Union  formed.  For 
example,  a  letter  of  Governor  Clinton  of  New  York, 
dated  April  2,  1790,  transmitting  an  act  ratifying 


1  Documentary  History  of  the  Constitution,  Vol.  I,  p. 
Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  I,  pp.  126,  138. 


43 ;    also 


SEVENTY  YEARS  OF  DISUNION         195 

certain  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  begins  :  ' t  The 
people  of  the  State  of  New  York,  by  the  Grace  of 
God,  Free  and  Independent,"  etc.1 

The  Governor  of  North  Carolina  signed  "in  the 
eleventh  year  of  our  Independence."  New  Hamp 
shire's  act  "to  enlarge  the  powers  of  Congress"  be 
gins,  "Whereas,  in  the  formation  of  the  Federal 
Compact,  which  frames  the  bond  of  union  of  the 
American  States,"  etc.  The  majority  of  the  twelve 
States  responding  refer  to  the  Articles  of  Confedera 
tion  as  "the  Federal  Constitution,"  and  all  speak  of 
revision  as  the  object  of  the  convention. 

No  purpose  of  an  absolute  departure  from  the  gen 
eral  plan  already  existing  is  anywhere  suggested,  and 
a  comparison  of  the  Articles  with  the  Constitution 
will  show  that  no  absolute  alteration  in  the  status  of 
the  States  was  effected  by  the  latter' s  adoption.  The 
Constitution  joined  the  loosely  bound  States  more 
closely  together,  by  putting  the  Federal  system  into 
better  shape,  but  did  not  make  them  a  nation. 
Nationality,  as  we  now  have  it,  was  a  gradual  growth. 
The  nationalists  of  1787  were  defeated,  nominally  at 
least,  and  this  explains  Hamilton's  description  of  the 
Constitution  as  "a  frail  and  worthless  fabric."  For 
example,  the  word  "national  "  itself  was  stricken  out 
of  the  resolutions.  Governor  Eandolph,  of  Virginia, 
a  strong  nationalist,  "  Resolved,  That  a  National  Gov 
ernment  ought  to  be  established,  consisting  of  a 
supreme  Judicial,  Legislative  and  Executive,"  but 
this  was  not  finally  accepted  until  on  motion,  of 
Mr.  Ellsworth,  of  Connecticut,  it  read  as  follows : 
"Resolved,  That  the  Government  of  the  United  States 

1  Documentary  History  of  the  Constitution,  Vol.  II,  p.  357. 


196  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

ought  to  consist  of  a  Supreme  Legislative,  Judiciary 
and  Executive."  l  And  it  was  explained  to  those  who 
made  objection  that  there  would  be  supremacy  only  as 
to  "the  powers  intended  to  be  granted  to  the  new 
Government."  a  That  the  Constitution  caused  no  very 
great  change  in  existing  conditions  was  clearly  be 
lieved  at  the  time.  ' '  If  the  new  Constitution  be  ex 
amined  with  candor,"  wrote  Madison,  discussing  this 
point,  "it  will  be  found  that  the  change  which  it 
proposes  consists  much  less  in  the  addition  of  new 
powers  to  the  Union  than  in  the  invigoration  of  its 
original  powers."3  Eoger  Sherman  and  Oliver  Ells 
worth,  in  their  letter  to  the  governor  of  Connecticut 
transmitting  a  copy  of  the  "  new  Constitution,"  stated 
that  "some  additional  powers  are  vested  in  Congress," 
but  that  "those  powers  extend  only  to  matters  re 
specting  the  common  interests  of  the  Union,  and  are 
specially  defined  so  that  the  particular  States  retain 
their  sovereignty  in  all  other  matters."  4 

There  is  not  a  great  deal,  aside  from  a  few  phrases 
in  the  Constitution  itself,  to  support  the  theory  that  that 
instrument  transferred  (and  that  the  Americans  of 
1787  understood  it  to  transfer)  power  from  the  people 
of  the  States  to  the  people  of  the  country  at  large. 
"  The  assent  and  ratification  of  the  people,"  explained 
Madison,  "not  as  individuals  composing  an  entire 
nation,  (jut  as  composing  the  distinct  and  independent 
States  to  which  they  belong,  are  the  sources  of  the 
Constitution^]  It  is  therefore  not  a  national  but  a 
federal  compact."  There  has  been  such  a  transfer  in 
effect,  but  it  came  through  a  century  of  gradual 

>  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  I,  p.  183.  >  Ibid.,  p.  392. 

8 The  Federalist,  No. 44.  'Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  I,  p.  491. 


SEVENTY  YEAKS  OF  DISUNION         197 

nationalization  of  sentiment.  How  great  has  been  the 
change  in  a  century  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  at 
the  outset  State  offices  were  generally  regarded  as 
superior  in  dignity  to  national.  It  was  in  consequence 
of  this  that  Governor  Hancock,  of  Massachusetts,  in 
sisted  that  he  himself  must  receive  the  first  visit  of 
state  when  President  Washington,  making  a  tour  of 
the  country,  visited  Boston.  "  We,  the  people  of  the 
United  States,"  is  one  of  the  phrases  of  the  Con 
stitution  that  seem  to  indicate  an  immediate  transfer 
of  power  from  the  people  of  the  separate  States  to  the 
people  of  the  Union  as  a  whole.  It  is  therefore  both 
an  interesting  and  a  significant  fact  that  the  opening  of 
the  preamble,  as  originally  adopted,  read  :  "  We,  the 
people  of  the  States  of  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts, 
Ehode  Island  and  Providence  Plantations,  Connecticut, 
New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware, 
Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina, 
and  Georgia  ...  do  ordain,  declare  and  establish 
the  following  Constitution,"  etc.1  Stephens  points  out 
that  a  sub-committee  on  style  made  the  change  to  the 
present  form  and  that  the  convention  agreed  to  it  for 
the  obvious  reason  that  in  the  absence  of  any  positive 
assurance  that  all  the  States  would  ratify  and  become 
parties  to  the  Constitution,  it  was  inappropriate  to  set 
forth  their  names  in  advance.  Article  VII  provided 
that  the  Constitution  should  go  into  effect  if  as  many 
as  nine  States  ratified  it.  Eleven  ratified  it  more  or 
less  promptly,  while  North  Carolina  and  Ehode  Island 
hesitated  for  two  years. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  people  of  1787  understood 
the   term,    u United  States"    literally,   without    any 
1  Elliots  Debates,  Vol.  I,  p.  224  (Lippincott  edition,  1881). 


198  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

of  the  consolidated  nation  idea  afterward  put  into  it. 
Nor  is  it  likely  that  many  of  them  read  into  the 
" paramount"  clause  of  the  Constitution  the  full 
meaning  afterward  attached  thereto.  The  clause 
reads  :  "  This  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  all  treaties  made 
or  which  shall  be  made  under  the  authority  of  the 
United  States,  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
and  the  judges  in  every  State  shall  be  bound  thereby, 
anything  in  the  constitution  or  the  laws  of  any  State 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.'7  There  were  those 
who  feared  this  clause,  and  they  had  to  be  pacified  in 
order  to  secure  the  ratifications  of  a  sufficient  number 
of  States.  Hamilton  labored  hard  with  them  before 
the  convention  of  New  York.  He  was  a  i  i  nationalist " 
of  the  most  extreme  type  and  would  have  been  glad  to 
believe  that  this  clause  .took  ultimate  sovereignty  away 
from  the  States,  but  if  he  so  believed,  he  dishonestly 
sought  to  convey  a  different  impression.  He  explained 
that  this  clause  "expressly  confines  supremacy  to  the 
laws  made  pursuant  of  the  Constitution"1  and  de 
scribed  any  other  view  as  "  sophistry."  In  the 
twenty -seventh  number  of  The  Federalist  he  even 
referred  to  the  Union  under  the  Constitution  as  a 
"  Confederacy."  It  was  precisely  because  he  be 
lieved  that  the  authority  of  the  central  govern 
ment  was  unhappily  restricted  within  the  sphere  of 
its  delegated  powers  that  he  spoke  as  late  as  1802 
of  the  government  established  by  the  Constitution 
as  "  a  frail  and  worthless  fabric."  Far-seeing  Patrick 
Henry,  however,  had  good  reason  for  his  conviction 
that  certain  utterances  of  the  Constitution  were  elastic 
1  The  Federalist,  No.  31. 


SEVENTY  YEARS  OF  DISUNION         199 

and  susceptible  of  interpretations  different  from  those 
given  them  by  the  ratifying  States,  although  it  con 
cluded  with  the  significant,  "Done  in  convention  by 
the  unanimous  consent  of  the  States  present,"  although 
it  provided  a  Senate  with  two  representatives  from 
each  State  irrespective  of  population,  although  it  di 
rected  that  the  President  be  chosen  through  votes  for 
State  electors,  and  although  the  entire  proceedings 
indicated  the  fact  that  the  people  of  the  whole  land 
were  not  acting  collectively  but  that  the  States 
acted  as  States  ;  as,  for  example,  where  the  original 
records  read:  "Monday,  July  28,  1788.  Congress 
assembled.  Present  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South 
Carolina,  and  Georgia."  l  In  this  and  all  other  in 
stances,  so  far  as  noted,  the  States,  not  the  represent 
atives  thereof,  were  recorded  as  present  and  acting. 

The  leading  purpose  of  the  arguments  presented  in 
the  ratifying  conventions  of  the  States,  so  far  as  these 
have  been  preserved,  seems  to  have  been  to  convince 
the  fearful  that  the  States  still  retained  ultimate  sov 
ereignty.  In  the  Pennsylvania  convention,  James 
Wilson  said  :  "  As  to  the  first  [objection],  that  it  is  a 
Consolidated  Government,  that  it  puts  the  thirteen 
United  States  into  one — if  it  is  meant  that  the  General 
Government  will  destroy  the  Governments  of  the  States, 
I  will  admit  that  such  a  Government  would  not  suit 
the  people  of  America.  It  would  be  improper  for  this 
country.  .  .  .  But  that  description  does  not  apply 
to  the  system  before  you."  2  Oliver  Ellsworth  said  in 

1  Documentary  History  of  the  Constitution,^ bl.  II,  p.  204. 

2  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  II,  pp.  481-2,  502,  503. 


200  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Connecticut's  convention:  "This  Constitution  does 
not  attempt  to  coerce  sovereign  bodies,  States,  in  their 
political  capacity." '  Massachusetts'  convention  rec 
ommended  certain  amendments  to  the  Constitution  in 
order  to  "  quiet  the  apprehensions  of  many  good  people 
of  this  commonwealth,"  and  the  language  employed 
clearly  implies  that  the  "new  Constitution"  was  re 
garded  as  "  a  solemn  compact ' '  of  union  between  the 
States. 3  In  the  discussion  Fisher  Ames  said :  "  The  sen 
ators  will  represent  the  sovereignty  of  the  States.  .  .  . 
They  are  in  the  quality  of  ambassadors  of  the  States."  8 
Samuel  Adams  said,  speaking  favorably  of  a  demand 
made  by  John  Hancock  and  others,  which  was  after 
ward  met  by  the  tenth  amendment  to  the  Constitution, 
reserving  to  the  States  all  the  powers  l '  not  delegated  "  : 
"It  removes  a  doubt  which  many  have  entertained 
and  gives  assurance  that,  if  any  law  made  by  the 
Federal  Government  shall  be  extended  beyond  the 
power  granted  by  the  proposed  Constitution  and  in 
consistent  with  the  Constitution  of  this  State,  it  will 
be  an  error,  and  adjudged  by  the  courts  of  law  to  be 
void.  It  is  consonant  with  the  second  article  in  the 
present  Confederation  that  each  State  retains  its  sov 
ereignty,  freedom  and  independence,  and  every  power, 
jurisdiction  and  right  which  is  not  by  this  Confedera 
tion  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  in  Con 
gress  assembled."  *  South  Carolina's  convention  de 
clared  "that  no  section  or  paragraph  of  the  said 
Constitution  warrants  a  construction  that  the  States 
do  not  retain  every  power  not  expressly  relinquished 
by  them  and  vested  in  the  General  Government  of  the 

1  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  II,  p.  197.        2  IMd.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  322-3. 
8  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  11-45.  4 Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  130-131. 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OF  DISUNION         201 

Union."  '  Nevertheless,  the  prophetic  soul  of  Eawlins 
Lowndes  was  troubled  and  he  declared  that  he  wished 
for  no  other  epitaph  than,  "Here  lies  the  man  that 
opposed  the  Constitution  because  it  was  ruinous  to  the 
liberties  of  America."  2 

Eeference  has  already  been  made  to  Patrick  Henry's 
objections  in  the  Virginia  convention  and  the  reas 
suring  responses  of  John  Marshall,  Edmund  Pendleton, 
and  others,  to  the  effect  that  if  necessary  the  mother 
of  States  would  recall  her  delegated  powers.  Labor 
ing  to  quiet  apprehension  in  New  York's  convention, 
Hamilton  said:  "The  State  Governments  possess  in 
herent  advantages  which  will  ever  give  them  an 
influence  and  ascendency  over  the  National  Govern 
ment  and  will  forever  preclude  the  possibility  of 
Federal  encroachments."  3  He  also  described  a  propo 
sition  to  coerce  the  States  as  "one  of  the  maddest 
projects  ever  devised." 4  New  York  finally  voted 
ratification  on  the  declared  premise  that  "  the  powers 
of  government  may  be  reassumed  by  the  people  when 
soever  it  shall  become  necessary  to  their  happiness." 5 

After  considering  the  action  of  the  several  State 
conventions  and  the  debates  therein,  Alexander  H. 
Stephens  reached  this  conclusion  : 

"While  many  apprehended  danger  to  the  sov 
ereignty  of  the  separate  States  from  constructions  and 
implications,  yet  on  all  hands  it  was  universally  ad 
mitted  that  it  purported  to  be  a  Federal  Constitution  ; 
aud  it  was  with  this  avowed  understanding  of  its  nature 
by  every  advocate  and  supporter  it  had  in  every  State 

•l  Elliot' s  Debates,  Vol.  I,  p.  325.  9  Ibid.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  311. 

*Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  239.  4/6td.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  231-3. 

6  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  327-9. 


202  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

of  the  Union,  even  by  Hamilton,  Morris,  "Wilson, 
King,  Madison  and  Kandolph,  who  had  favored  a 
National  Government  proper,  in  the  Federal  conven 
tion,  instead  of  the  plan  embodied  in  the  Constitution. 
The  leading  idea  in  all  the  conventions  was  that  a 
Confederate  Eepublic  was  to  be  established  by  it  upon 
the  model  set  forth  in  Montesquieu.  According  to 
that  model,  an  artificial  State  is  created  for  Foreign  or 
National,  as  well  as  inter-State  purposes,  and  these 
only,  by  several  small  Eepublics,  thus  confederating 
for  their  common  defense  and  happiness  ;  each  retain 
ing  its  separate  sovereignty,  and  the  artificial  State  so 
created  by  them  being,  at  all  times,  subject  to  their 
will  and  power.  That  this  artificial  State  so  created 
may  be  dissolved,  and  yet  the  separate  Eepublics  sur 
vive,  retaining  at  all  times  their  State  organization 
and  sovereignty.  ...  Is  it  not  clear  that  the 
United  States  are,  or  constitute,  a  Confederated  Ee 
public  (as  Washington  styled  it),1  bound  together  by 
the  solemn  Compact  of  Union,  entered  into  by  the 
several  members  thereof  under  the  Constitution  ? 
.  .  .  Is  not  the  Constitution,  as  appears  not  only 
from  the  history  of  its  formation  but  from  its  face,  a 
compact  between  sovereign  States?"  2 

It  may  be  justly  observed  that  the  powers  of  such  a 
confederated  republic  would  be  too  restricted  for  the 
legitimate  purposes  of  successful  government,  and  that 
no  such  republic  could  long  endure.  But  it  may  with 
equal  propriety  be  remarked  that  this  was  precisely 
the  weakness  in  the  government  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  as  at  first  constituted,  and  even  until  the 
issue  of  the  war  of  1861-5  was  known  and  accepted, 
when  the  assertion  of  State  sovereignty  was  made  for 

1  Washington  also  spoke  of  it  as  "the  new  Confederacy"  ir  his 
letter  to  Chas.  C.  Pinckney,  June  28,  1788.—  Washington's  Writ 
ings,  Vol.  IX,  pp.  389-90. 

2  Stephens,  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  I,  pp.  296-7 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OF  DISUNION         203 

the  last  time  and  the  national  government  finally  be 
came  supreme,  although  the  form,  and,  in  purely  State 
affairs,  the  substance,  of  our  dual  system  remained. 
Even  then  the  national  government  triumphed  and 
State  sovereignty  breathed  its  last  breath  only  because 
the  more  powerful  States  found  it  to  their  interest  to 
sustain  the  central  authority.  Stephens' s  general  con 
clusion,  so  far  as  early  conditions  were  concerned, 
cannot  be  successfully  assailed.  The  debates  indicate 
that  a  similar  view  predominated  when  the  Constitu 
tion  was  adopted,  and  subsequent  events  can  be  ex-^ 
plained  in  no  other  way.  Nullification  having  been 
the  rule  under  the  first  Confederation,  and  the  States 
of  the  Union  still  regarding  themselves  as  sovereign, 
the  spirit  of  nullification  continued  to  flourish  and 
produced  many  overt  acts  as  time  passed.  For  seventy 
years  there  existed  a  marked  tendency  to  assert  the 
right  of  States  to  nullify  Congressional  enactments  and 
even  to  sever  their  relations  with  the  Union. 

The  first  of  these,  of  considerable  importance,  oc 
curred  in  1798-9,  and  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky  took 
the  shape  of  nullification  resolutions.  These  interest 
ing  declarations  were  aimed  particularly  at  the  Alien 
and  Sedition  acts,  but  were  the  result  of  many  mistakes 
of  the  Federalists  while  in  power,  including  the  high 
handed  behavior  of  President  John  Adams,  who 
recklessly  cast  free-tongued  citizens  into  prison  in  a  mis 
guided  effort  to  suppress  criticism.  Free-spoken  print 
ers  and  editors  were  among  those  prosecuted  for  sedi 
tion.  '  These  and  similar  unwarranted  assumptions  of 

1  For  example,  Thomas  Cooper  dared  to  say  in  1797  that  Presi 
dent  Adams  was  "hardly  in  the  infancy  of  his  political  mistakes." 
For  such  "  sedition  "  he  was  imprisoned  six  months  and  fined  $400. 


204  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

power  led  the  Virginia  Assembly  to  adopt  resolutions 
calling  on  the  States  to  nullify  the  enforcement  of  the 
sedition  laws.  The  resolutions  set  forth  that  Virginia 
would  support  the  general  government  in  all  measures 
warranted  by  the  Constitution,  but  that  t '  this  As 
sembly  doth  explicitly  and  peremptorily  declare  that 
it  views  the  powers  of  the  Federal  Government,  as  re 
sulting  from  the  compact  to  which  States  are  parties, 
as  limited  by  the  plain  sense  and  intention  of  the 
instrument  constituting  that  compact,  as  no  further 
valid  than  they  are  authorized  by  the  grants 
enumerated  in  that  compact ;  and  that,  in  case  of  a 
deliberate,  palpable  and  dangerous  exercise  of  other 
powers,  not  granted  by  the  said  compact,  the  States, 
who  are  parties  thereto,  have  the  right  and  are  in  duty 
bound,  to  interpose,  for  arresting  the  progress  of  the 
evil,  and  for  maintaining,  within  their  respective  limits, 
the  authorities,  rights  and  liberties,  appertaining  to 
them. ' '  The  resolutions  further  declared  the  Alien  and 
Sedition  laws  unconstitutional,  and  Virginia  invited 
the  other  States  to  cooperate  in  resisting  them,  "in 
order  to  maintain  unimpaired  the  authorities,  rights 
and  liberties  reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to 
the  people. "  Madison  drew  up  these  resolutions,  and 
they  also  expressed  the  views  of  Patrick  Henry,  Jeffer 
son,  Mason,  and  many  other  prominent  Virginians. 
Kentucky's  resolutions,  which  were  drafted  in  the 

Matthew  Lyon,  a  Congressman  of  Vermont,  in  the  course  of  a 
stump  speech  in  a  campaign  for  reelection,  attributed  to  Adams  an 
"unbounded  thirst  for  ridiculous  pomp,  foolish  adulation,  and 
a  selfish  avarice."  For  this  he  was  cast  into  jail,  kept  there  four 
months  and  compelled  to  pay  a  fine  of  $1,000.  Nearly  half  a 
century  later,  in  1840,  Congress  refunded  the  amount  of  this  fine 
with  interest  to  Lyon's  heirs. 


SEVENTY  YEAKS  OF  DISUNION         205 

main  by  Jefferson,  declared,  in  brief,  that  when 
powers  were  assumed  by  the  central  government 
which  had  not  been  granted  by  the  States,  "  nullifica 
tion  is  the  rightful  remedy  "  j  and  that  "  every  State 
has  a  natural  right  in  all  cases  not  within  the  compact 
(casus  nonfcederis)  to  nullify  of  their  own  authority  all 
assumptions  of  power  by  others  within  their  limits." 
The  hope  was  expressed  that  "  the  co-States,  recurring 
to  their  natural  right  in  cases  not  made  Federal,  will 
concur  in  declaring  these  acts  void,"  and  that  each 
"will  take  measures  of  its  own  for  providing  that 
neither  these  acts,  nor  any  others  of  the  general 
government  not  plainly  and  intentionally  authorized 
by  the  Constitution,  shall  be  exercised  within  their  re 
spective  territories." 

In  New  York  and  New  England,  where  the  influence 
of  the  Federalist  party  (now  in  control  of  the  general 
government)  was  predominating,  there  was  no  favor 
able  response  to  these  resolutions,  but  John  Adams 
described  the  position  of  "the  whole  South  and  West 
as  menacing.  > '  Federalist  New  England  now  attributed 
disloyalty  to  Virginia  whose  ablest  men  had  in  1787 
sought  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  general  govern 
ment.  A  few  years  later  when  Jefferson7 s  Eepublican 
party  succeeded  to  power,  the  situation  was  reversed. 
Jefferson's  electors,  at  a  dinner  at  Swan  Tavern, 
Eichmond,  toasted  the  Union  and  hurled  the  charge  of 
"  treason"  at  the  New  England  Federalists  who  were 
then  plotting  the  establishment  of  a  separate  Northern 
Confederacy,  although  they,  when  it  suited  them  later 
on,  posed  as  devout  Unionists  and  invented  the 
abstract  distinction  betw.een  "the  people"  and  the 
State  governments,  obscuring  the  real  truth  that  the 


206  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

Constitution  was  accepted  with  reservations  by  "the 
people"  in  their  organic  capacity  as  separate  States, 
each  claiming  individual  sovereignty. 

The  Federalists  desired  a  stronger  central  govern 
ment  than  that  "  frail  and  worthless  fabric,"  the 
Constitution,  permitted  them  to  have,  and  their  ideal 
was  in  essence  aristocratic  class  rule.  It  was  this  that 
caused  Madison  to  part  company  with  Hamilton,  who, 
like  all  the  Federalist  leaders,  abhorred  and  distrusted 
democracy  as  (to  quote  Cabot)  "the  government  of 
the  worst."  At  a  banquet  in  New  York  Hamilton  ex 
claimed  :  i  i  The  people  !  Gentlemen,  the  people  are  a 
great  Beast!"  The  time  had  come,  however,  when 
the  large  majority  of  the  people  were  ripe  for  democ 
racy.  This  explains  the  triumph  and  long  lease  of 
power  of  Jefferson's  Eepublican  (Democratic)  party, 
which  was  execrated  by  the  New  England  Federalists 
precisely  for  the  reason  that  it  was  the  party  of  human 
rights,  home  rule,  self-government,  and  individualism, 
as  opposed  to  autocratic  and  paternalistic  government. 
Barring  the  accidental  defense  of  slavery  in  later  times, 
inevitable  under  the  circumstances,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  party  of  Jefferson  lived  up  to  its  ideals  to  a 
very  considerable  extent  and  was  of  immense  service 
to  this  country  in  banishing  the  government-ridden 
and  government- stifled  conditions  similar  to  those  of 
Europe  which  were  fast  taking  root  under  Federalist 
rule. 

/^Tartly  their  hatred  of  Jefferson's  democracy  and 
partly  the  ineradicable  idea  of  State  sovereignty 
brought  about  the  attempt  of  leading  Federalists  to 
form  a  separate  Northern  Confederacy  in  1803-4. 
Associated  in  the  movement  were  Timothy  Pickering, 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OF  DISUNION         207 

Fisher  Ames,  George  Cabot,  and  Theophilus  Parsons, 
of  Massachusetts,  Eoger  Griswold,  of  Connecticut, 
William  Plumer,  of  New  Hampshire,  and  other 
prominent  New  England  Federalists.  When  his 
cooperation  was  invited,  Hamilton  wrote  rather  dis- 
couragingly  to  Sedgwick,  thus  :  t  i  Dismemberment  of 
our  empire  will  be  a  clear  sacrifice  of  great  positive 
advantages  without  any  counterbalancing  good  ;  ad 
ministering  no  relief  to  our  real  disease  which  is 
democracy."  l  His  ambitions  were  too  far-reaching 
to  permit  him  contentment  as  a  leader  in  a  mere 
Northern  half  of  the  "empire."  Later,  however,  he 
consented  to  attend  a  secessionist  meeting  of  Federal 
ists  in  Boston,  but  this  was  prevented  by  his  untimely 
death  in  the  summer  of  1804. 2  The  more  enthusiastic 
Pickering  wrote  to  Stephen  Higginson,  December  4, 
1803:  "I  will  not  yet  despair.  .  .  .  There  will  be 
a  separation.  The  British  provinces,  even  with  the 
assent  of  Britain,  will  become  members  of  the  North 
ern  Confederacy."  3  He  believed  that  the  proposition 
"would  be  welcomed  in  Connecticut,  and  could  we 
doubt  of  New  Hampshire?  New  York  must  be  as 
sociated.  She  must  be  made  the  centre  of  the  Con 
federacy.  Vermont  and  New  Jersey  would  follow  of 
course."  But  Eoger  Griswold  ventured  the  astute 
opinion  that  "the  magnitude  and  jealousy  of  Massa 
chusetts  will  render  it  necessary  that  the  operation 
shall  begin  there."  Pickering  did  not  "know  of  owe 
reflecting  Nov- Anglian  who  is  not  anxious  for  the 

1  Hamilton's   Works,  Vol.    I,    p.  568 ;     Lodge's    Life  of  George 
Cabot,  p.  438. 

2  C.  F.  Robertson,  The  Louisiana  Purchase  in  Its  Influence  on  the 
American  System  (Papers  Am.  Hist.  Jss'n.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  262-263). 

8  Lodge,  Life  of  Cabot,  p.  441. 


208  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

Great  Event."  l  George  Cabot  thought  the  time  was 
not  yet  ripe;  "a  separation  now  is  impracticable." 
But  Griswold  wrote  warningly  to  Wolcott :  "  Whilst 
we  are  waiting  for  the  time  to  arrive  in  New  England, 
it  is  certain  that  the  Democracy  is  daily  making  in 
roads  on  us."  The  leaders  hesitated,  unable  to  agree. 
In  all  the  plotting  there  is  no  evidence  that  anybody 
questioned  the  right  of  the  Northern  States  to  secede. 
"The  objections  were  only  on  the  ground  of  practical 
difficulty,  owing  to  the  growth  of  Jefferson's  party 
even  in  New  England.  Its  growth  was  enough  to  give 
the  Federalist  secessionists  pause,  for  in  the  election 
of  1804  Jefferson  carried  every  State  in  the  Union 
except  Connecticut  and  Delaware.  Writing  his  Life 
of  George  Cabot  (president  of  the  Hartford  Convention) 
in  the  year  1877,  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  (now  Senator 
Lodge)  observes  :  ' '  The  men  who  were  prominent  in 
1804  had  formed  our  present  Union  from  pure  motives 
of  policy  and  they  regarded  separation  in  exactly  the 
same  way.  The  individuality  and  separate  existence 
of  the  States  were  quite  as  familiar  to  them  as  the 
conception  of  the  Union."2  This  is  an  accurate  de 
scription  of  the  dominant  attitude  in  the  South  in 
1860.  "The  tone,"  adds  Lodge,  "in  which  the  men 
of  that  day  discussed  the  question  of  a  dissolution  of 
the  Union  is  one  that  may  well  startle  the  present 
generation  which  has  passed  through  a  great  civil  war 
and  has  learned  to  consider  the  mere  mention  of 
separation  as  the  blackest  treason."  8  Lodge's  own 
"tone"  is  not  dissimilar.  He  does  not  speak  of  the 
plot  to  form  a  Northern  Confederacy  as  "rebellion  " 

1  Lodge,  Life  of  Cabot,  p.  449.  *Ibid.,  p.  440. 

*lUd.,  p.  440. 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OF  DISUNION         209 

or  "  treason,"  but  as  the  u  separatist  scheme."  In 
excuse  for  his  ancestor  and  the  other  intending  se 
cessionists  he  says  that  i  i  the  success  of  Jefferson  was  a 
revolution"  l  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
New  England  Federalists  should  wish  to  flock  to  them 
selves.  But  the  election  of  Jefferson  was  less  a  rev 
olution  than  the  election  of  Lincoln.  Speaking  of 
the  action  of  the  Hartford  Convention  a  few  years 
later,  Lodge  says  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
question  of  nullification  and  secession  "  was  then  an 
open  one. " a  It  has  been  shown  in  earlier  pages  of  this 
volume  that  it  was  regarded  as  an  open  question  by 
the  legislature  and  governor  of  Massachusetts  as  late 
as  1845.  Why  was  it  not  still  an  open  question  in 
1860,  no  new  Constitution  or  other  pledge  of  nation 
ality  having  been  either  provided  or  adopted  since 
1787? 

The  next  attempt  to  break  up  the  Union,  that  of 
Aaron  Burr,  was  a  conspiracy  pure  and  simple,  into 
which  the  State  sovereignty  idea  did  not  appreciably 
enter,  and  it  therefore  has  no  place  in  this  review. 
The  nullification  and  secession  sentiment  in  New 
England  only  smoldered.  It  flamed  up  again  under 
the  unpopular  embargo  in  1808  and  again  during  the 
unpopular  War  of  1812.  John  Quincy  Adams  testified 
that  the  Essex  Junto  planned  a  convention  to  consider 
secession,  the  movement  of  1803-4  taking  on  new  life 
in  1808.  In  his  second  letter  to  the  thirteen  Boston 
gentlemen  he  declared  that  the  old  plot  was  never 
abandoned,  but  was  revived  in  1808  and  again  in 
1814,  and  that  "  the  Hartford  Convention  was  the 
culmination  of  this  conspiracy  and  was  intended  as  a 

1  Lodge,  Life  of  Cabot,  p.  422.  2  Ibid.,  p.  520. 


210  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

preliminary  step  to  the  attainment  of  the  object  of 
the  conspirators,  a  dissolution  of  the  Union."  '  In 
1811  Josiah  Quincy,  member  of  Congress  from  Massa 
chusetts,  in  opposing  the  admission  of  Louisiana  as  a 
State,  boldly  announced  on  the  floor  of  the  House 
that  i  i  if  this  bill  passes,  the  bonds  of  this  Union  are 
virtually  dissolved  ;  that  the  States  which  compose  it 
are  free  from  their  moral  obligations,  and  that,  as  it 
will  be  the  right  of  all,  so  it  will  be  the  duty  of  some, 
to  prepare  definitely  for  a  separation  ;  amicably  if 
they  can,  violently  if  they  must."  2 

Even  young  Daniel  Webster,  who  in  after  years  in 
his  debates  with  Hayne  and  Calhoun  so  emphatically 
denied  the  right  of  nullification  and  secession,  at  this 
period  shared  in  the  prevalent  belief  that  the  States 
were  independent  of  the  general  government.  In  his 
speech  on  the  conscription  bill  in  the  House  on  De 
cember  14,  1814,  he  threatened  defiance  of  the  central 
authority  on  the  part  of  Massachusetts  and  intimated 
that  if  driven  to  it  his  State  would  secede.  He  opposed 
the  War  of  1812,  and  especially  the  conscription  bill, 
declaring  that  the  fate  of  the  Union  rested  on  the 
issue.  "It  will  be  the  solemn  duty  of  the  State  gov 
ernments,"  he  declared,  "  to  protect  their  own  authority 
over  their  own  militia  and  to  interpose  between  their 
citizens  and  arbitrary  power."3  When  Webster 
"  threatens  that  the  State  government  will  interfere," 
pointedly  observes  Professor  Van  Tyne,  l  i  we  wonder 
if  Hayne  and  Calhoun  went  any  further."  *  At 


1  Lodge,  Life  of  Cabot,  pp.  412-13. 

2  Edmund  Quincy,  Life  of  Josiah  Quincy,  p.  206. 

8  C.  H.  Van  Tyne,  Letters  of  Daniel  Webster,  p.  67. 
« Ibid.,  p.  31. 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OF  DISUNION         211 

Eockingham,  N.  H.,  Webster  offered  this  resolution  : 
"We  shrink  from  the  separation  of  the  States  as 
fraught  with  incalculable  evil.  If  a  separation  should 
ever  take  place  it  will  be  when  one  portion  of  the 
country  undertakes  to  control,  to  regulate  and  to 
sacrifice  the  interests  of  another."  The  secessionists 
of  1860-61  might  well  have  pointed  to  this  as  a  true 
prophecy  of  the  raison  d'etre  of  their  own  hazardous 
undertaking.  As  one  of  the  leading  Federalists  of  New 
England,  Webster  was  included  in  the  charge  of  John 
Quincy  Adams  that  those  leading  Federalists  from 
1807-8  down  to  the  close  of  the  War  of  1812  were  plot 
ting  to  sever  their  section  from  the  Union.  It  has 
recently  been  brought  to  light  that  in  1828  Daniel 
Webster  prosecuted  Theodore  Lyman,  of  Boston,  for 
libel  because  the  latter  had  charged  that  he  had 
taken  part  in  the  plot  to  dissolve  the  Union  in  1807-8. 
The  jury  was  unable  to  agree  on  a  verdict  and  the  case 
was  dismissed.  The  connected  fact  of  greatest  interest 
is  that  Samuel  Hubbard,  who  defended  Lyman,  and 
who  later  became  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Massachusetts,  argued  fnaT  it  was  "  not  libelous  "  to 
make  such  a  charge,  because  :  "  A  Confederation  of 
the  New  England  States  to  confer  with  each  other  on 
the  subject  of  dissolving  the  Union  was  no  treason. 
The  several  States  are  independent  and  not  dependent. 
Every  State  has  a  right  to  secede  from  the  Union  without 
committing  treason."  * 

At  the  time  of  the  Hartford  Convention  in  1814  New 
England  was  virtually  an  open  enemy  of  the  Washing 
ton  government  and  the  Boston  Centinal  made  no  mis- 

1  Josiah  H.  Benton,  A  Notable  Libel  Case,  pp.  90-103  (Goodspeed, 
Boston,  1904). 


212  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

take  when  it  declared  that  the  Union  was  as  good  as 
dissolved.  Resolutions  were  sent  to  the  Massachusetts 
legislature  from  the  town  of  Newberry  in  Pickering' s 
district  pledging  a  the  sacrifice  of  our  lives  and  prop 
erty  in  support  of  whatever  measures  the  dignities 
and  liberties  of  this  free,  sovereign  and  independent 
State  may  seem  to  your  wisdom  to  demand."  In  the 
Hartford  Convention  were  twelve  delegates  from 
Massachusetts,  seven  from  Connecticut,  four  from 
Rhode  Island,  two  from  New  Hampshire  and  one  from 
Vermont,  and  "they  represented  a  majority  of  the 
people  of  their  respective  States."  '  To  make  a  sepa 
rate  and  special  treaty  with  England,  as  well  as  to 
secede,  had  already  been  publicly  proposed,2  but  the 
convention  itself  discreetly  sat  behind  closed  doors 
and  complete  records  are  not  obtainable.  John  Quincy 
Adams  charged  that  the  journal  preserved  did  not 
contain  a  full  account  and  that  the  "  twenty-seven 
written  pages  "  mentioned  by  George  Cabot  were  in 
sufficient  as  a  report  of  such  a  convention.  The  con 
vention  is  certainly  known  to  have  reported  that  "if 
the  Union  be  destined  to  dissolution,  some  new  form 
of  Confederacy  should  be  substituted  among  those 
States  which  shall  intend  to  retain  a  federal  relation 
toward  each  other;"  that  "separation  by  equitable 
arrangement  is  preferable  to  an  alliance  by  constraint 
among  nominal  friends  but  real  enemies,  inflamed  by 
mutual  hatred  and  jealousy,  and  inviting  by  intestine 
division,  contempt  and  aggression  from  abroad  ; "  but 
that  i  i  a  severance  of  the  Union  by  one  or  more  States, 
especially  in  time  of  war,  can  be  justified  only  by 
absolute  necessity." 
1  Lodge,  Life  of  Cabot,  p.  507.  2  Jbid.,  pp.  516-17. 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OF  DISUNION         213 

Even  iii  his  apology,  Lodge  admits  that  the  men  of 
the  Hartford  Convention  ' '  intended  to  coerce  the  Ad 
ministration  by  threatening  them  with  separation."  l 
At  the  best  it  is  clear  that  New  England  in  its  con 
vention  at  Hartford  threatened  the  general  govern 
ment,  when  that  government  was  embarrassed  and  en 
gaged  in  a  foreign  war,  with  secession  to  follow  exist 
ing  nullification.  John  Quincy  Adams  charged  that 
the  leaders  both  then  and  in  1807-8  were  in  commu 
nication  with  Great  Britain,2  and  the  hostile  spirit  was 
betrayed  in  the  refusal  of  both  Governor  Strong 
of  Massachusetts  and  Governor  Griswold  of  Connecticut 
to  send  the  troops  first  called  for  in  1812. 3  Vermont 
also  in  1813  refused  to  send  troops  in  response  to  the 
urgent  call  from  Washington.  Pickering  unblushingly 
wrote:  "If  the  British  succeed  in  their  expedition 
against  New  Orleans,  I  shall  consider  the  Union  as 
severed."  *  But  the  British  were  beaten  at  New 
Orleans  and  peace  was  soon  declared.  Had  the  result 
been  otherwise,  all  the  facts  indicate  that  the  New 
England  States  would  have  promptly  cut  themselves 
loose  from  the  Union  and  made  a  separate  and  humiliat- 
ing  peace  with  Great  Britain.  New  England's  trade 
interests  suffered  seriously  during  the  war  and  after 
ward,  but  that  section  now  received  little  sympathy. 
According  to  Adams,  "so  discredited  was  Massa 
chusetts  that  she  scarcely  ventured  to  complain  ;  for 
every  complaint  by  her  press  was  followed  by  the 
ironical  advice  that  she  call  another  Hartford  Conven 
tion.7  '  The  very  name  of < i  Yankee ' '  became  a  by- word. 

1  Lodge,  Life  of  Cabot,  p.  518.  2 Ibid.,  pp.  412-413. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  513. 
4  Powell,  Nullification  and  Secession  in  the  United  States,  p.  221. 


214  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Among  other  instances  of  early  nullification  and  the 
assertion  of  State  sovereignty  may  be  mentioned  the 
"  Whiskey  Bebellion"  in  Pennsylvania,  where  for 
three  years  the  excise  law  was  successfully  resisted. 
In  1809  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  ordered  out  the 
State  militia  and  prevented  a  process  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States.  In  1793  the  Georgia 
legislature,  in  connection  with  the  suit  of  Chisholm 
against  the  State  passed  "  an  act  declaratory  of  certain 
parts  of  the  retained  sovereignty  of  Georgia"  which 
provided  "that  any  Federal  marshal,  or  any  other 
person  or  persons  levying  or  attempting  to  levy,  on 
the  territory  of  this  State,  or  any  part  thereof  .  .  . 
under  or  by  virtue  of  any  execution  or  other  com 
pulsory  process  issuing  out  of  or  by  authority  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  .  .  .  are 
hereby  declared  to  be  guilty  of  felony,  and  shall  suffer 
death,  without  benefit  of  the  clergy,  by  being 
hanged. ' ' 1  After  this  we  are  prepared  for  Governor 
Troup's  resolute  and  successful  defiance  of  the  Wash 
ington  government  in  connection  with  the  Creek  In 
dian  difficulties  during  the  John  Quincy  Adams  ad 
ministration.  The  treaty  of  Indian  Springs  being 
disavowed  by  the  more  powerful  chiefs  of  the  Creeks, 
the  United  States  government  entered  into  another, 
the  treaty  of  Washington.  But  Georgia  insisted  on 
the  validity  of  the  former  treaty,  not  only  as  more 
favorable  but  because  surveys  and  occupation  of  the 
ceded  territory  had  already  begun.  The  Secretary  of 
War,  on  May  18,  1825,  notified  Governor  Troup  that 
"  the  President  expects  "  the  survey  to  be  abandoned, 
and  that  force  would  be  used  if  necessary.  Governor 
1  Ames,  State  Documents  on  Federal  delations,  pp.  7-11. 


SEVENTY  YEABS  OF  DISUNION         215 

Troup  answered  defiantly  and  called  out  the  State 
militia.1  The  State  sustained  him  and  there  would 
have  been  a  bloody  conflict  between  the  two  authorities 
had  not  the  central  government  yielded  and  receded 
from  its  position.  In  messages  to  the  Georgia  legis 
lature  in  May  and  June,  1825,  Governor  Troup  de 
nounced  "officious  and  impertinent  intermeddling 
with  our  domestic  concerns"  (referring  to  a  proposi 
tion  made  in  Congress  to  use  the  proceeds  of  the  sale 
of  public  lands  for  the  emancipation  and  colonization 
of  slaves),  and  notified  those  concerned  that  "the 
United  States  can  choose  between  our  enmity  and  our 
love." 3  Georgia  also  successfully  resisted  the  de 
cision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  connection  with  the 
questions  of  the  missionaries  and  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Cherokee  nation  in  1831-5. 3  Alabama  was  equally 
belligerent  and  triumphant.  After  the  United  States 
marshals  were  ordered  to  remove  the  30,000  white 
settlers  in  the  nine  Indian  counties,  and  war  at 
once  appeared  to  be  imminent,  the  governor  of  that 
State  received  offers  of  voluntary  service  from  persons 
residing  as  far  away  as  New  York.4  The  troubles 
were  finally  brought  to  a  peaceable  issue  by  the  re 
moval  of  all  the  Indian  tribes  to  the  west  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  Eiver. 

Later  instances  of  nullification  and  the  assertion  of 
State  sovereignty  include  Maine's  resolutions  in  1831, 
denouncing  the  Canadian  boundary  treaty  as  a  decision 

1  Niks' a  Register,  XXXII,  p.   16;  ibid.,  XXVIII,  pp.  155-208; 
Acts  of  Georgia,  1825,  pp.  204-209. 

2  Niks' 8  Register,  XXVIII,  pp.  274-277, 

3  Ames,    State    Documents    on   Federal  Relations,  pp.    128-129; 
Phillips,  Georgia  and  States1  Rights,  ch.  2-3. 

4  Fleming,  Civil  War  and  Reconstruction  in  Alabama,  pp.  8-9. 


216  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

to  which  she  as  a  State  with  t '  sovereign  power, "  .  .  . 
"can  not  yield"  ;  South  Carolina's  repudiation  of 
the  tariff  law  in  1832,  which  would  probably  have 
been  followed  by  secession  had  not  the  offending  tariff 
been  promptly  modified  to  an  extent  satisfactory  to 
Calhoun  ;  the  defiant  attitude  of  the  legislature  and 
governor  of  Massachusetts  in  1843-5  and  their  virtual 
threat  of  New  England's  secession  if  Texas  were  ad 
mitted  as  a  State ; '  and  the  widespread  secession  move 
ment  in  the  Southern  States  in  1850-51,  checked  by 
the  hard-fought  victory  of  Southern  unionists  in  the 
elections. 

The  Abolitionists  from  the  very  outset  had  been 
saturated  with  the  nullification  and  even  the  secession 
spirit,  as  has  been  shown,  and  no  more  complete  ex 
amples  of  nullification  and  defiance  of  Constitutional 
mandates  and  Congressional  enactments  are  to  be 
found  than  the  statutory  repudiations  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  by  a  majority  of  the  Northern  States,  so 
pointedly  complained  of  by  Calhoun  and  rebuked  by 
Webster  in  1850  and  deplored  by  President  Buchanan 
in  1860.  The  history  of  the  first  seventy  years  of  our 
government  is  crowded  with  events  and  with  utter 
ances  pointing  to  the  act  of  the  Southern  States  in 
1860-61  as  a  perfectly  comprehensible  and  logical  out 
come  of  all  that  had  gone  before. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  but  for  the  bitter 
quarrel  over  the  extension  of  slavery  in  the  territories 
the  South  would  not  have  put  forward  the  claim  of 
State  sovereignty  in  other  than  an  academic  way  as 
late  as  1850,  much  less  1860  ;  but  when  we  reflect  upon 
Massachusetts'  threatening  resolutions  as  late  as  1845, 

1  See  ante,  pp.  51-54. 


SEVENTY  YEARS  OF  DISUNION         217 

it  is  made  manifest  that  what  we  now  call  national 
sentiment  was  of  slower  growth  in  New  England  as 
well  as  in  the  South  than  in  the  Middle  and  Western 
States.  The  creation  of  new  States  in  the  West 
strengthened  the  Union  for  the  obvious  reason  that 
these  new  States,  which  were  never  sovereign  and  only 
outlying  territory  claimed  by  the  general  government, 
were  devoid  of  the  traditions,  jealousies  and  pride  of 
the  old  thirteen  originally  independent  common 
wealths,  and  had  no  desire  to  stand  apart.  But  per 
haps  the  most  important  factor  in  the  more  rapid 
growth  of  nationality  in  the  Middle  and  Western 
States  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  stream  of  European 
immigration  flowing  through  them.  To  the  new 
comers  the  country  was  one,  Washington  was  its  seat 
of  government,  and  the  President  its  only  ruler  of 
consequence.  The  foreign  born  were  without  intel 
ligent  comprehension  of  our  dual  system  of  govern 
ment,  were  ignorant  of  the  illuminating  history  of  the 
origin  of  that  system,  and  as  for  the  claim  of  State 
sovereignty  it  was  to  them  the  veriest  foolishness, 
which  they  readily  pronounced  treason  when  the  crisis 
came.  It  was  a  semi-Europeanized  as  well  as  a  com 
mercial  and  slavery-hating  North  that  declared  for 
the  Union  and  forbade  secession. 

We  have  yet  to  notice  some  of  the  many  utterances 
of  early  writers  indicating  that  State  sovereignty, 
nullification,  and  the  right  of  secession  were  at  least 
open  questions  until  the  great  war  decided  the  issue 
forever.  One  of  the  most  notable  of  these  was  William 
Bawle,  principal  author  of  the  revised  code  of  Penn 
sylvania,  for  many  years  chancellor  of  the  Law  Asso 
ciation  of  Philadelphia,  and  one  of  the  most  eminent 


218  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

lawyers  of  his  time.  In  his  View  of  the  Constitution, 
published  in  1825,  he  describes  the  Union  as  "an 
association  of  the  people  of  republics,"  the  preserva 
tion  of  which  "is  calculated  to  depend  on  the  pres 
ervation  of  those  republics."1  And  further:  "It 
depends  on  the  State  itself  to  retain  or  abolish  the 
principle  of  representation,  because  it  depends  on  itself 
whether  it  will  continue  a  member  of  the  Union" 
(p.  289).  "To  deny  this  right  would  be  inconsistent 
with  the  principles  on  which  our  political  systems  are 
founded.  This  right  must  be  considered  as  an  in 
gredient  in  the  original  composition  of  the  general 
government,  which,  though  not  expressed,  was  mu 
tually  understood."  [What  pity  it  was  not  either 
clearly  "expressed"  or  never  "mutually  under 
stood"!]  "The  States,  then,  may  wholly  withdraw 
from  the  Union ;  but  while  they  continue,  they  must 
retain  the  character  of  representative  republics" 
(p.  290).  "The  secession  of  a  State  from  the  Union 
depends  on  the  will  of  the  people  of  such  State" 
(p.  295).  "  The  people  of  a  State  may  have  reason  to 
complain  in  respect  to  acts  of  the  general  govern 
ment  ;  they  may  in  such  cases  invest  some  of  their 
own  officers  with  the  power  of  negotiation,  and  may  de 
clare  an  absolute  secession  in  case  of  failure  "  (p.  296). 
"To  withdraw  from  the  Union  is  a  solemn,  serious 
act.  Whenever  it  may  appear  expedient  to  the  people 
of  a  State,  it  must  be  manifested  in  a  direct  and 
unequivocal  manner"  (p.  298).  Etc.,  etc. 

This  work,  which  treated  of  the  right  of  secession 
as  a  matter  of  course,  generally  understood  and  ac- 

1  Rawle's  View  of  the  Constitution  (Philadelphia,  1825),  pp.  288- 
299. 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OF  DISUNION         219 

knowledged,  was  not  only  a  reference  book  in  the 
average  American  college  and  public  library,  but, 
according  to  Charles  Francis  Adams,  was  the  standard 
text-book  on  its  subject  at  the  West  Point  Military 
Academy,  where  u  anterior  to  1840  the  doctrine  of  the 
right  of  secession  seems  to  have  been  inculcated."  ' 
In  a  letter  dated  November  23,  1904,  and  signed 
Edward  S.  Holden,  Librarian  of  the  West  Point  Mili 
tary  Academy,  it  is  stated  that  the  copy  of  Bawle's 
View  of  the  Constitution  "owned  by  the  Library  U.  S. 
M.  A.,  contains  manuscript  notes  which  make  it  very 
probable  that  this  book  was  used  as  a  text-book  at  the 
Military  Academy,  inasmuch  as  there  is  a  list  of  sections 
and  lessons  marked."  2  A  similar  statement  appears 
in  a  letter  signed  by  Brigadier-General  A.  L.  Mills, 
Superintendent  of  the  Military  Academy,  who  also 
says,  date  of  November  18,  1904,  that  in  "the  forth 
coming  Memorial  Volume  of  the  Military  Academy" 
Bawle's  View  of  the  Constitution  will  be  described  as 
"the  text-book  of  the  law  department,  from  (?)  to 
(?) — "  (dates  uncertain).3  Having  been  published  in 
1825,  it  is  reasonably  certain  that  the  book  was  in 
use  at  West  Point  for  some  years,  until  the  in 
troduction  of  such  later  works  as  Kent's  Com 
mentaries  and  Story's  Commentaries.4  All  this  is  of  the 

1  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Constitutional  Ethics  of  Secession,  p.  16. 
'Robert  Bingham,   Sectional  Misunderstandings  (reprinted,  with 
brief  additions,  from  North  American  Review  of  Sept.,  1904). 

3  Ibid. 

4  In  The  Spirit  of  Old  West  Point,  just  published  by  General  Mor 
ris  Schaff,  who  was  sent  to  the  Military  Academy  from  Ohio  in 
1858,  it  is  stated  that  Rawle  "was  used  as  a  text-book  for  two 
years  only,  from  1825  to  1827  "  (p.  230).     However  that  may  be, 
it  still  remains  true  that  Davis,  Lee  and  the  two  Johnstons  were 
students  at  West  Point  during  those  years.     General  Schaff  states 
that  the  influence  of  the  book  was  felt  long  afterward  and  he  assigns 


L-0  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

highest  interest,  in  view  of  the  tact  that  Ji-iYerson 
Davis  and  Robert  R  Lee  graduated  at  West  Point  in 

1828  and  1829  respectively.  According  to  the  state 
ment  of  John  Kawle,  grandson  of  William  Kawle, 
date  of  January  27.  liKO,  "General  Lee  told  Bishop 
Wilmer.  of  Louisiana,  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
instruction  he  got  from  Kawle' s  text -book  at  West 
Point  he  would  not  have  left  the  old  army  and  joined 
the  South  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  late  war  between 
the  States."  l  William  l>rooke  Kawle,  of  Philadelphia, 
"always  understood"  that  his  ancestor's  work  "was 
for  many  years  a  text -book  at  the  United  States  Mili 
tary  Academy  at  West  Point."  *' 

According  to  General  Dabuey  H.  Maury,  "Mr.  Davis 
and  Sidney  Johnston  and  General  Joe  Johnston  and 
General  Leo.  and  all  the  rest  of  us  who  retired  with 
Virginia  from  the  Federal  Union,  were  not  only  obey 
ing  the  plain  instincts  of  our  nature  and  dictates  of 
duty,  but  we  were  obey  ing  the  very  inculcations  we 
had  received  in  the  Xatioua.1  School."  According  to 
the  statement  of  Kev.  Dr.  L.  W.  Racou,  of  Assouet, 
Mass..  date  of  March  2o.  1884  :  "  While  the  question 
of  JerY  Daviste  trial  for  high  treason  was  pending,  Mr. 

this  &>  or.e  of  the  important  reasons  "why  West  Point  men  re 
signed  t<  join  the  Confederacy  "  pp,  899-833  This  assertion  as 
to  the  length  of  the  period  seems  to  be  baaed  on  a  statement  made 
in  1894  bj  Col.  R.  T.  Bennett,  of  North  {V"1^  that  Jefferson 
Davis  had,  in  1886,  written  to  him  as  follows :  "Jtaib  on  lit  Otm~ 
*it*Ho*  was  the  text-book  at  West  Point,  but  when  the  dan  of 
which  I  was  a  member  entered  the  graduating  year.  Kent's  Oom- 
mf*t<trif»  was  introduced  aa  the  text-book  on  the  Constitution  and 
International  Law.  Though  not  so  decided  on  the  point  of  State 
-  ••.-.•:••.  i-.-tj  h(  waflTer  hi  in  adwrn  '.  Ihe  oonsolidationists  of 
our  time,**— SbnOtm  JTutertMl  P*ptr*  Vol.  XXII.  p.  S3. 

1  Robert  Bingham,  Srctiomal  Mimmdmtmidiag*.  3  Ibid. 

*  Somtlfr*  Historical  Paprr*.  Vol.  VI,  p.  349. 


SEVENTY  YEAES  OP  DISUNION         221 

W.  B.  Reed,  counsel  for  the  defense,  was  a  member  of 

my  brother's  congregation  at  Orange  Valley,  X.  J. 
He  told  ray  brother,  after  it  had  been  decided  that  the 
trial  was  not  to  take  place,  thai:  if  the  ease  had  eome  to 
trial,  the  defense  would  have  offered  in  evidence  the 
text-book  on  constitutional  law  from  which  Davis  had 
been  instructed  at  West  Point  by  the  authority  of  the 
United  States  government,  and  in  which  the  right  of 
secession  is  maintained  as  one  of  the  constitutional 
rights  of  a  State."  l  Thaddeus  Stevens  held  -'that  as 
the  belligerent  character  of  the  Southern  States  was  rec 
ognized  by  the  United  States,  neither  Davis  nor  Clay 
can  be  tried  for  treason ; "  *  but  when  the  council  of  emi 
nent  Northern  lawyers  decided  that  the  trial  must  be 
abandoned  because  of  "the  insurmountable  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  getting  a  final  conviction,'' 3  it  is  proba 
ble  that  not  the  least  serious  of  those  obstacles  was  the 
use  of  Kawle's  "HW  >  ••••/•  -  at  \\\-st  Point, 

when  Davis  was  a  cadet  there. 

Writing  a  few  years  later  than  Eawle.  in  1835.  that 
observant  French  student  of  American  government  and 
conditions.  Alexis  De  Tocqueville.  gives  similar  testi 
mony,  after  the  careful  investigations  of  a  long  sojourn 
in  this  country.  De  Tocqueville,  as  Eichard  CobcK-n 
observed  in  IVJl.  "takes  the  Southern  view  "  of  the 
right  of  secession.  "  He  says,  •  the  Union  was  formed 
by  the  voluntary  agreement  of  the  States,  and  in  unit 
ing  together  they  have  not  forfeited  their  nationality, 
nor  have  they  been  reduced  to  one  and  the  same  peo- 

1  Robert  BIngham,    "  f  f   i  iT  JfTiiniiri  rfa»ifi'aj». 

:  J/e;7i.o in  of  Mrs.  C!emt,.-  <  .  ''Doubieday,  Page  &  Co. ;.  let 
ter  of  R.  J.  Haldeman.  p.  291. 

s  I7i«  Republic  of  Republic-*  '  Little.  Brown  &  Co.,  Ia7=j.  Prtf.aoe, 
p.  v. 


222  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

pie.  If  one  of  the  States  chose  to  withdraw  its  name 
from  the  contract,  it  would  be  difficult  to  disprove  its 
right  of  doing  so  j  and  the  Federal  government  would 
have  no  means  of  maintaining  its  claims  either  by  force 
or  by  right.'  He  then  goes  on  to  argue  that  among 
the  States  united  by  the  Federal  tie  there  may  be  some 
which  have  a  great  interest  in  maintaining  the  Union 
on  which  their  prosperity  depends  ['which  exclusively 
enjoy  the  principal  advantages  of  union '],  and  he  then 
remarks,  '  Great  things  may  then  be  done  in  the  name 
of  the  Federal  government,  but  in  reality  that  govern 
ment  will  have  ceased  to  exist.'  Has  he  not  accurately 
anticipated  both  the  fact  and  the  motive  I  "' 

De  Tocqueville  also  astutely  observes  :  "  Patriotism 
is  still  directed  to  the  State  and  has  not  passed  over  to 
the  Union.  .  .  .  Whenever  the  Federal  govern 
ment  has  anything  to  do  with  a  State,  it  begins  to  par 
ley,  to  explain  its  motives  and  justify  its  conduct,  to 
advise  and,  in  short,  anything  but  command.  .  .  . 
The  provincial  government  prefers  its  claim  with  bold 
ness  .  .  .  while  the  government  of  the  Union 
reasons,  temporizes,  negotiates  .  .  .  [being]  nat 
urally  so  weak.  ...  If  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Union  were  to  engage  in  a  struggle  with  that  of  the 
States  at  the  present  day,  its  defeat  may  be  confidently 
predicted  ;  and  it  is  not  probable  that  such  a  struggle 
would  be  seriously  undertaken.  Experience  has  hith 
erto  shown  that  whenever  a  State  has  demanded  any 
thing  with  perseverance  and  resolution,  it  has  invaria 
bly  succeeded  ; ' '  [as  in  the  case  three  years  before  of 
South  Carolina's  nullification,  which  secured  the  re 
duction  of  the  offending  tariff,  notwithstanding  the 
1  John  Morley,  Life  of  Richard  Cobden,  p.  385. 


SEVENTY  YEABS  OF  DISUNION         223 

fulmiuations  of  Andrew  Jackson,  who  was  stronger 
than  the  government  he  represented]  "  and  that  if  it 
has  distinctly  refused  to  act,  it  was  left  to  do  as  it 
thought  fit.1  It  appears  to  me  unquestionable  that  the 
present  Union  will  last  only  as  long  as  the  States  which 
compose  it  choose  to  continue  members  of  the  con 
federation." 

De  Tocqueville  thought  it  was  not  so  much  a  ques 
tion  as  to  whether  the  States  are  "  capable  of  sepa 
rating"  as  it  is  "  whether  they  will  choose  to  remain 
united."  This  shrewd  foreign  observer  put  his  finger 
on  an  important  factor  in  the  strength  of  the  Union 
sentiment  in  one  section  when  he  added  :  ' '  The  North, 
which  ships  the  products  of  the  Anglo-Americans  to 
all  parts  of  the  world,  and  brings  back  the  produce  of 
the  globe  to  the  Union,  is  evidently  interested  in  main 
taining  the  Confederation  in  its  present  condition,  in 
order  that  the  number  of  American  producers  and  con 
sumers  may  remain  as  large  as  possible.  .  .  .  The 
North  cannot  but  desire  the  maintenance  of  the  Union, 
in  order  to  remain  as  it  now  is  the  connecting  link  be 
tween  that  vast  body  [the  South  and  West]  and  the 
other  parts  of  the  world."2 

Four  years  after  De  Tocqueville  wrote,  in  a  discourse 
on  the  "Jubilee  of  the  Constitution"  at  New  York 
in  1839,  John  Quincy  Adams  said  :  "  If  the  day  should 
ever  come  (may  Heaven  avert  it !)  when  the  affections 

1  A  footnote  adds  :  "  See  the  conduct  of  the  Northern  States 
during  the  War  of  1812.  '  During  that  war,'  says  Jefferson,  in  a 
letter  to  General  Lafayette,  '  four  of  the  Eastern  States  were  only 
attached  to  the  Union  like  so  many  inanimate  bodies  to  living 
men.'  » 

2De  Tocqueville's  Democracy  in  America  (Gilman  ed.,  1898), 
Vol.  I,  pp.  496-504. 


224  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

of  the  people  of  these  States  are  alienated  from  each 
other,  when  the  fraternal  spirit  shall  give  way  to  cold 
indifference,  or  collisions  of  interest  shall  fester  into 
hatred,  the  bonds  of  political  association  will  not  long 
hold  together  parties  no  longer  attracted  by  the  mag 
netism  of  conciliated  interests  and  kindly  sympathies  j 
and  far  better  will  it  be  for  the  people  of  the  disunited 
States  to  part  in  friendship  from  each  other  than  to  be 
held  together  by  constraint.  Then  will  be  the  time 
for  reverting  to  the  precedents  which  occurred  at  the 
formation  and  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  to  form 
again  a  more  perfect  Union  by  dissolving  that  which 
could  no  longer  bind,  and  to  leave  the  separated  parts 
to  be  reunited  by  the  law  of  political  gravitation 
to  the  centre. "  1  The  ex -President  spoke  as  one 
who  had  learned  through  his  unsuccessful  struggle 
with  Governor  Troup,  of  Georgia,  that  the  State  gov 
ernments  were  stronger  than  the  central  authority, 
and  that  it  was  wiser  on  the  part  of  the  latter  not  to 
try  conclusions  with  the  former. 

Massachusetts7  threatening  resolutions,  to  which 
we  have  referred,  show  that  the  State  sovereignty  idea 
still  vigorously  flourished  in  other  sections  than  the 
South  as  late  as  1845.  Even  as  late  as  1860  the  view 
was  publicly  expressed  in  the  North.  In  his  Con 
stitutional  View  Stephens  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  Horace  Greeley  declared  editorially  in  the  New 
York  Tribune  on  December  9th  of  this  year :  "  That 
was  a  base  and  hypocritic  row  that  was  once  raised  at 
Southern  dictation  about  the  ears  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,  because  he  presented  a  petition  for  the  dissolu 
tion  of  the  Union.  The  petitioner  had  a  right  to 

1  John  Quincy  Adams,  Milee  of  the  Constitution,  p.  69. 


SEVENTY  YEARS  OF  DISUNION         225 

make  the  request ;  it  was  the  member's  duty  to  pre 
sent  it.  And  now,  if  the  Cotton  States  consider  the 
value  of  the  Union  debatable,  we  maintain  their  per 
fect  right  to  discuss  it.  Nay,  we  hold,  with  Jefferson, 
to  the  inalienable  right  of  communities  to  alter  or 
abolish  forms  of  government  that  have  become  op 
pressive  or  imperious  j  and  if  the  Cotton  States  shall 
decide  that  they  can  do  better  out  of  the  Union  than 
in  it,  we  insist  on  letting  them  go  in  peace. "  ' 

Of  the  inevitable  conflict  of  1861-5  it  may  be  justly 
said  that  both  sections  were  fundamentally  moved  by 
self-interest,  but  that  each  was  amply  supported  by 
sentiment.  Therefore  the  North  made  much  of  the 
facts  and  traditions  tending  to  deny  the  right  of  seces 
sion  and  the  South  made  much  of  the  facts  and  tradi 
tions  tending  to  confirm  that  right.  The  Constitution, 
a  compromise  of  contending  factions,  is  elastic  and 
susceptible  to  varying  interpretations.  On  its  face  it 
confirms  more  strongly  the  national  than  the  State 
sovereignty  idea — barring  the  Tenth  Amendment, — but 
it  confirms  both.  Viewing  it,  however,  in  the  light  of 
the  conditions  at  the  time  of  its  adoption,  the  debates 
accompanying  its  ratification,  the  illuminating  events 
of  the  subsequent  seventy  years,  and  the  significant 
utterances  of  early  writers  and  speakers  indicative  of 
the  popular  understanding,  it  will  unquestionably  ap-~ 
pear  to  confirm  more  positively  the  State  sovereignty 
than  the  national  idea. 

The  verdict  of  history  can  be  no  other  than  that 
true  nationality  was  the  growth  of  a  century,  and  that 
the  States,  which  were  first  in  time,  by  creating  a 
central  government  with  only  certain  delegated 

1  Greeley's  American  Conflict,  Vol.  I,  p.  359. 


226  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

powers,  provided  a  divided  sovereignty,  and  thus  left 
the  people  free  to  choose  j  and  further  that  when  the 
people  did  choose,  they  were  moved  by  instinctive 
preference  as  well  as  influenced  by  environment  and 
sectional  prejudice.  This  divided  sovereignty  would 
have  produced  conflict — pending  the  final  triumph  of 
nationality — even  if  slavery  and  the  negro  had  injected 
no  lamentable  apple  of  discord.  Finally,  the  verdict 
of  history  must  declare  that  from  1850  to  1876  there 
was  more  genuine  revolution  on  the  part  of  the  union 
ist  North  than  the  secessionist  South — the  revolution 
ary  course  of  the  former  beginning  with  State  nullifica 
tion  of  the  constitutional  provision  for  the  return  of 
fugitive  slaves  and  continuing  until  a  slavery-protect 
ing  Constitution  had  been  reconstructed  and  Southern 
society  had  been  turned  upside  down  and  made  to 
stand  upon  its  head. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

THE  Congress  of  the  new  Southern  Confederacy  that 
met  at  Montgomery,  Ala.,  on  February  4,  1861,  rep 
resented  only  the  six  States  of  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi  and  Louisiana. 
These  had  a  slave  population  of  2, 165, 651  and  a  free 
white  population  of  only  2,287,147.  Even  after  they 
were  joined  by  the  five  other  seceding  States  of 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Arkansas  and 
Texas,  the  free  white  population  of  the  eleven  States 
amounted  to  only  about  five  millions.  The  States  that 
joined  in  the  war  for  the  Union,  without  including 
Maryland,  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  which  were  offi 
cially  neutral  and  actually  divided,  contained  a  free  and 
almost  entirely  white  population  four  times  as  great 
as  that  of  the  eleven  seceding  States  and  nearly  nine 
times  as  great  as  the  white  population  of  the  first  six 
seceding  States  which  formed  the  Confederate  govern 
ment  at  Montgomery.  The  remarkable  temerity  of 
these  latter  can  be  explained  only  on  the  ground  of 
the  general  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty 
and  the  lack  of  any  widespread  apprehension  that  a 
serious  effort  would  be  made  to  coerce  the  seceding 
sovereignties  by  force  of  arms. 

If  the  other  leaders  shared  Stephens' s  expectation  of 
war  they  were  less  outspoken,  and  the  people  generally 


228  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

were  full  of  joyful  anticipations  of  the  peaceable  es 
tablishment  of  the  independence  of  their  section. 
"  Georgia's  Declaration  of  Independence, "  for  ex 
ample,  was  celebrated  with  the  happiest  of  festivities. 
"Let  us  exult,"  said  the  Augusta  Constitutionalist, 
under  the  editorial  caption,  "The  Republic  of 
Georgia, "  on  January  20,  1861 — "let  us  rejoice  in  the 
day  which  beheld  our  State  resume  all  her  delegated 
sovereignty  and  take  her  place  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth."  And  the  people  exulted — believing  that 
now  at  last  the  sectional  wrangling  of  forty  years 
was  at  an  end,  and  that  the  seceding  States  would  be 
free  to  govern  themselves  in  all  things  as  they  saw  fit. 
The  Church  received  secession  with  open  arms. 
Even  before  the  issue  was  known  Bishop  Elliott  in 
structed  the  Episcopal  clergymen  of  Georgia  to  use  a 
form  of  prayer  supplicating  the  presence  of  the 
Almighty  "with  the  Supreme  Council  of  our  State 
now  assembled."  One  paragraph  of  his  announce 
ment  to  the  diocese,  dated  January  14,  1861,  reads  : 
"  In  the  event  of  the  secession  of  the  State  of  Georgia 
from  the  Union,  the  clergy  will  suspend  the  use  of  the 
prayer  entitled  '  A  Prayer  for  Congress  '  ;  and  in  the 
prayer  entitled  'A  Prayer  for  the  President  of  the 
United  States  and  all  in  civil  authority,'  will  omit  the 
words,  <Thy  servant,  the  President  of  the  United 
States,'  and  substitute  in  their  places  the  words,  ( Thy 
servant,  the  Governor  of  the  State  of  Georgia/ "  * 
The  first  prayer  at  the  opening  of  the  Confederate 
Congress  at  Montgomery,  delivered  by  Eev.  Dr. 
Manley  of  the  Baptist  Church,  is  worthy  of  notice : 

1  From  a  private  scrap-book  of  clippings  from  Southern  newt- 
papers  of  the  period. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      229 

"  Oh,  Thou  God  of  the  Universe  ...  we  thank 
Thee  for  all  the  hallowed  memories  connected  with  our 
past  history.  Thou  hast  been  the  God  of  our  fathers  ; 
oh,  be  Thou  our  God.  Let  it  please  Thee  to  vouchsafe 
Thy  sacred  presence  to  this  assembly.  .  .  .  We 
appeal  to  Thee,  the  searcher  of  hearts,  for  the  purity 
and  sincerity  of  our  motives.  If  we  are  in  violation  of 
any  compact  still  obligatory  upon  us  with  those  States 
from  which  we  have  separated  in  order  to  set  up  a  new 
government,  ...  we  cannot  hope  for  Thy  pres 
ence  and  blessing.  But  oh,  Thou  heart-searching  God, 
we  trust  that  Thou  seest  we  are  pursuing  those  rights 
which  were  guaranteed  to  us  by  the  solemn  covenants 
of  our  fathers  and  which  were  cemented  by  their  blood. 
And  now  we  humbly  recognize  Thy  hand  in  the 
Providence  which  has  brought  us  together.  We  pray 
Thee  to  give  the  spirit  of  wisdom  to  Thy  servants,  with 
all  necessary  grace,  that  they  may  act  with  delibera 
tion  and  purpose,  and  that  they  will  wisely  adopt  such 
measures  in  this  trying  condition  of  our  affairs  as  shall 
redound  to  Thy  glory  and  the  good  of  our  country. 
.  .  .  Oh,  God,  assist  them  to  preserve  our  republi 
can  form  of  government  and  the  purity  of  the  forms  of 
religion  .  .  .  and  when  the  hour  of  trial,  which 
may  supervene,  shall  come,  enable  them  to  stand  firm 
in  the  exercise  of  truth,  with  great  prudence  and  a  just 
regard  for  the  sovereign  rights  of  their  constituents. 
Oh,  God,  grant  that  the  union  of  these  States,  and  all 
that  may  come  into  this  union,  may  endure  as  long  as 
the  sun  and  moon  shall  last,  and  until  the  Son  of  Man 
shall  come  a  second  time  to  judge  the  world  in  right 
eousness.  Preside  over  this  body  .  .  .  and  let 
truth  and  justice  and  equal  rights  be  secured  to  our 
government.  .  .  ." l  ' 

//Alexander  H.  Stephens  reluctantly  agreed  to  be  one 
of  Georgia's  representatives  at  the  Montgomery  con- 

^rom  scrap-book  of  clippings  from  Southern  newspapers  of 
1861—5. 


230  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

vention  of  the  seceded  States,  and  his  consent  was 
made  contingent  on  satisfactory  assurances  that  both 
the  provisional  and  permanent  governments  would  be 
formed  "  upon  the  principle  and  basis  of  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States.^/  Possibly  he  early  took 
such  ground  owing  to  certain  tentative  unofficial  sug 
gestions  as  to  the  advisability  of  establishing  a 
monarchical  form  of  government,  although  the  need  of 
such  caution  is  not  apparent.  Andrew  Johnson,  in 
his  speech  against  secession  on  December  19,  1860, 
greatly  exaggerated  the  importance  of  certain  Southern 
utterances  on  this  subject.  He  quoted  a  writer  in  the 
Columbus,  Ga.,  Times  as  saying,  "I  raise  my  voice  for 
a  return  to  a  constitutional  monarchy,"  and  showed 
the  Augusta  Chronicle  and  Sentinel  as  questioning 
whether  the  people  were  ready  for  the  "  hereditary 
constitutional  monarchy"  which  "  some  of  the  wisest 
and  best  citizens  propose,"  and  as  noting  that  other 
citizens  favored  a  restricted  suffrage,  representatives 
elected  for  seven  years,  senators  for  a  long  period,  and 
the  executive  for  life.  The  two  Georgia  newspapers 
named  were  the  only  authorities  cited  by  Johnson. 

It  does  not  appear  that  this  question  was  even  men 
tioned  in  the  deliberations  at  Montgomery.  Neither 
Stephens2  nor  Dr.  J.  L.  M.  Curry,3  another  member, 
refers  to  it  when  giving  an  account  of  the  formation  of 
the  Confederate  Constitution,  although  the  latter  feels 
called  on  emphatically  to  declare  that  "  no  proposition 
was  made  to  open  or  connive  at  the  slave  trade,  nor 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  383. 

'Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  II,  pp.  335- 
340. 

3  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  Civil  History  of  the  Confederate  States,  pp.  62-86, 
274-309. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      231 

did  a  single  member  favor  such  an  infamous  scheme. " 
Conservative  republicanism  ruled,  as  will  be  seen. 
Possibly  Stephens  was  not  sure  of  such  conservatism 
at  the  outset,  for  he  made  his  cooperation  conditional, 
as  noted,  and  before  going  to  Montgomery  he  said  in  a 
private  letter  that  his  apprehension  and  distrust  of  the 
future  arose  from  the  want  of  u  loyalty  to  principle,  and 
pure,  disinterested  patriotism  in  the  men  at  the  head 
of  the  movement.77  But  his  letters  at  all  periods  show 
that  such  an  attitude  of  distrust  was  habitual  with  him 
whenever  he  disagreed  as  positively  as  he  had  with 
Toombs  and  others  on  the  advisability  of  secession. 
He  may  have  feared  that  Toombs  would  attempt  to 
force  radical  and  revolutionary  ideas  on  the  Congress,1 
and  was  agreeably  disappointed  when  he  found  how 
nearly  they  were  in  agreement  in  the  matter  of  the 
proposed  Constitution.  "  He  is  very  friendly  with  me 
now,77  Stephens  wrote,  pleased,  a  few  days  after  the 
Congress  met,  "and  confers  freely  with  me  on  all 
matters  either  before  his  committee  on  the  Constitu 
tion  or  before  Congress.77 

During  the  sittings  at  Montgomery  Stephens7  s  letters 
are  at  times  very  critical.  Referring  to  the  proceedings 
of  the  second  day,  he  says  he  made  a  certain  motion 
"merely  because  the  crowd  generally  seemed  green 
and  not  to  know  how  to  proceed. 7  7  On  February  27th 
he  rather  egotistically  observes  that  i  i  only  occasion- 1- 
ally  a  member  speaks  whom  I  have  any  patience 

1  When,  in  his  speech  against  secession  before  the  Georgia  legis 
lature,  November  14,  1860,  Stephens  expressed  his  great  admira 
tion  for  the  government  of  the  United  States,  in  spite  of  "all  its 
defects,"  and  challenged  unfavorable  comparison  with  any  other 
"on  the  face  of  the  earth,"  Toombs  loudly  interjected:  "Eng 
land  !  "—Cleveland's  Letters  and  Speeches,  p.  699. 


232  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

with."  On  March  1st:  "We  lack  statesmanship  of 
what  I  consider  a  high  order.  We  have  but  little  if 
any  real  forecast.  This  renders  me  uneasy."  But 
when  the  work  was  well  forward  and  it  pleased  him, 
he  wrote :  * l  Upon  the  whole,  this  Congress  is  the 
ablest,  soberest,  most  intelligent  and  conservative  body 
I  was  ever  in."  Even  after  this  he  wrote  that  he 
"was  in  agony  all  day  yesterday  for  fear  some  mis 
chief  might  be  done,"  and  that  he  was  "constantly 
suspended  between  hope  and  fear  for  the  future." 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  the  impression  made  by  this 
first  Confederate  Congress  and  the  Southern  men  there 
on  a  foreign  observer,  W.  H.  Russell,  the  correspondent 
of  the  London  Times,  afterward  known  as  "Bull  Run  " 
Russell,  he  having  greatly  displeased  the  Northern 
public  by  a  too  truthful  account  of  the  hasty  march 
back  to  Washington  after  the  first  battle  of  Manassas 
or  Bull  Run.  "I  could  fancy,"  he  writes,  "that,  in 
all  but  garments,  they  were  like  the  men  who  first 
conceived  the  great  rebellion  which  led  to  the  inde 
pendence  of  this  wonderful  country — so  earnest,  so 
grave,  so  sober  and  so  vindictive — at  least  so  embit 
tered  against  the  power  which  they  consider  tyran 
nical  and  insulting.  .  .  .  The  word  l  liberty '  was 
used  repeatedly. "  J  At  the  same  time  the  slave  market 
in  Montgomery  produced  in  Russell  "a  feeling  of  inex 
pressible  loathing  and  indignation."  He  might  well 
have  added,  however,  that  the  "  liberty  "-loving  seces 
sionists  of  1861  were  not  more  inconsistent,  if  indeed 
more  blind,  in  this  particular  than  were  their  grand 
fathers  of  1776  and  1787. 

Stephens  anxiously  desired   that  the  Confederate 

1  W.  H.  Russell,  My  Diary  North  and  South,  pp.  67-68. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      233 

Constitution  be  so  formed  as  to  admit  non-slaveholding 
States  also,  and  that  the  policy  of  the  new  government 
should  be  such  as  might  induce  the  Western  States 
and  territories  to  join  the  Confederacy,  which  other 
wise  he  feared  would  be  known,  to  its  damage,  as 
"the  Black  Republic. "  He  seemed  not  to  perceive 
that,  in  view  of  the  South' s  position  on  the  extension 
of  slavery  into  the  territories,  this  was  impossible,  and 
that  such  a  hope  could  never  be  realized.  The  objec 
tion  to  the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  Northwest 
was  ostensibly  on  moral  but  fundamentally  on  eco 
nomic  grounds.  The  working  classes  (the  bulk  of  the 
population)  of  the  North  and  Northwest  evidently 
cared  little  about  the  duration  of  slavery  as  long  as  it 
was  confined  to  the  South,  but  they  were  unalterably 
opposed  to  the  deadly  competition  of  slave  labor. 
There  is  no  indication  that  the  Southern  leaders  saw 
this  vitally  important  matter  in  its  true  light,  all  of 
them,  even  Stephens,  viewing  it  from  the  aloof  and 
incomprehensive  patrician  standpoint. 

Among  the  men  who  l  ( did  most  toward  suggesting 
and  enforcing  the  changes  which  were  adopted7'  in 
the  Confederate  Constitution,  Dr.  J.  L.  M.  Curry 
prominently  mentions  Stephens,  and  in  referring  to 
the  preliminary  work,  says:  "On  motion  of  Mr. 
Stephens  a  committee  on  rules  was  appointed.  He 
soon  reported  a  code  which  very  much  simplified 
parliamentary  procedure  and  facilitated  business.  The 
simplification  of  the  artificial  '  previous  question '  has 
been  adopted  by  legislatures  and  is  incorporated  in 
many  codes."  *  In  his  own  account2  Stephens  attrib- 

1  Curry,  Civil  History  of  the  Confederate  States,  pp.  43-47,  63-64. 
8  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  II,  pp.  335-339. 


234  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

uted  most  of  the  important  suggestions  to  other  mem 
bers  of  the  convention,  which  included  besides  himself 
the  four  Georgians,  Toombs,  Hill,  T.  E.  E.  Cobb, 
Howell  Cobb  (the  presiding  officer),  and  Ehett,  Walker, 
Conrad,  and  Withers  from  the  other  States  represented. 
In  a  private  letter  from  Montgomery,  date  of  Febru 
ary  9,  1861.  he,  however,  made  this  statement : 

"  We  agreed  last  night  at  about  midnight  to  a 
Constitution  for  a  Provisional  Government  of  the 
Confederate  States.  That  is  the  name.  It  is  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States,  with  such  changes  as 
are  necessary  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  times.  Two 
new  features  have  been  introduced  by  nie :  one,  leav 
ing  out  the  clause  that  excluded  cabinet  ministers  from 
being  members  of  Congress  ;  the  other,  that  Congress 
should  not  have  power  to  appropriate  any  money  un 
less  it  be  asked  for  by  the  Executive  or  some  one  of 
the  heads  of  departments,"  [except  by  a  two-thirds 
vote  of  both  houses].1 

He  also  wrote  plaintively  during  the  sittings  :  "I  am 
occupied  day  and  night ;  never  did  I  have  such  a  heavy 
load  of  work  on  my  hands.  Sometimes  I  think  I  shall 
sink  under  it."  Well  might  one  always  so  frail  and 
ailing  as  he  complain.  Even  when  out  of  Congress, 
he  writes,  he  was  obliged  to  receive  those  who  came 
to  consult  him  "  until  twelve  o'clock  at  night." 

The  Confederate  Constitution,  as  Stephens  explained, 

1  When  finally  adopted  this  was  accompanied  by  the  requirement 
that  the  Treasury  publish  at  stated  intervals  its  receipts  and  dis 
bursements  by  items.  These  characteristic  precautions  recall 
Blaine's  testimony  (Twenty  Years  of  Congress},  that  "through 
out  the  long  period  of  their  domination  [at  Washington]  the 
Southern  leaders  guarded  the  treasury  with  rigid  and  increasing 
vigilance  against  every  attempt  at  extravagance  and  every  form  of 
corruption." 


VICE-PKESIDENT  OF  CONFEDEKACY      235 

was  little  more  than  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  with  certain  more  explicit  statements  bearing 
on  the  political  issues  of  the  time.  The  following 
change  in  the  preamble,  the  insertions  or  substitutions 
appearing  in  italics,  will  give  an  idea  of  the  general 
spirit  of  the  alterations. 

1  i  We  the  people  of  the  Confederate  States,  each  State 
acting  in  its  sovereign  and  independent  character,  in  order 
to  form  a  permanent  federal  government,  establish 
justice,  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  and  secure  the 
blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity — 
invoking  the  favor  and  guidance  of  Almighty  God — do 
ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  of  the  Confeder 
ate  States  of  America." 

In  Article  I,  "  all  legislative  powers  herein  granted  " 
was  altered  so  as  to  read,  "  all  legislative  powers 
herein  delegated,"  with  the  obvious  purpose  of  a  more 
positive  expression  of  the  reserved  sovereignty  of  the 
States  forming  the  Confederacy.  The  "  importation 
of  negroes  of  the  African  race  from  any  foreign  country 
other  than  the  slave-holding  States  or  Territories  of  the 
United  States  of  America"  was  forbidden.  The  para 
graph  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  provid 
ing  for  the  inter-State  surrender  of  escaped  slaves  was 
thus  changed:  "No  slave  or  other  person  held  to 
service  or  labor  in  any  State  or  Territory  of  the  Con 
federate  States,  escaping  or  lawfully  carried  into 
another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation 
therein  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor  ;  but 
shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom 
such  slave  belongs,  or  to  whom  such  service  or  labor 
may  be  due." 

Among  the  changes  in  no  way  related  to  the  polit- 


236  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

ical  controversies  of  the  time,  other  than  those  already 
noted  in  the  extract  from  Stephens' s  private  letter, 
were  provisions  to  prevent  infringements  upon  popular 
liberty  and  upon  State  rights,  and  restrictions  upon 
the  taxing  power.  "  The  question  of  building  up  class 
interests, "  said  Stephens  in  a  speech  at  Savannah  on 
March  21st,  "  or  fostering  one  branch  of  industry  to  the 
prejudice  of  another  under  the  exercise  of  the  revenue 
power,  which  gave  us  so  much  trouble  under  the  old 
Constitution,  is  put  at  rest  forever  under  the  new. 
We  allow  the  imposition  of  no  duty  with  a  view  of 
giving  advantage  to  one  class  of  persons,  in  any  trade 
or  business,  over  those  of  another.  All,  under  our 
system,  stand  upon  the  same  broad  principles  of  per 
fect  equality." 

The  tenure  of  the  President's  office  was  fixed  at  six 
years,  after  which  he  was  not  eligible  for  a  second 
term.  This  last  provision  is  of  itself  sufficient  dis 
proof  of  the  existence  of  any  leaning  toward  either  the 
substance  or  the  form  of  monarchy.  Indeed,  new 
restrictions  were  placed  upon  the  power  of  the  Presi 
dent,  eligible  for  but  one  term,  by  providing  that  he 
might  remove  only  cabinet  and  diplomatic  officers  at 
discretion  and  requiring  that  in  all  other  cases  removals 
could  be  made  only  for  cause  reported  to  the  Senate. 

Stephens  well  said  that  "the  whole  document 
utterly  negatives  the  idea,  which  so  many  have  been 
active  in  endeavoring  to  put  in  the  enduring  form  of 
history,  that  the  convention  at  Montgomery  was  noth- 
iug  but  a  set  of  '  conspirators '  whose  object  was  the 
overthrow  of  the  principles  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States."  1  Dr.  Curry  saw  in  the  debates  at 

Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  II,  p.  339. 


VICE-PKESIDENT  OF  CONFEDEKACY      237 

Montgomery  only  "  the  one  controlling  desire"  to 
devise  a  system  which,  ' l  while  avoiding  the  weaknesses 
or  failures  of  the  old,"  would  "result  in  the  welfare 
of  the  people  and  the  safeguarding  of  human  rights." 
With  the  inevitable  exception  of  the  "  human  rights  " 
of  the  negro  slaves,  this  is  absolutely  true.1 

Early  in  the  session,  on  February  9th,  Jefferson  Davis 
and  Alexander  H.  Stephens  were  unanimously  chosen 
President  and  Vice- President  of  the  new  government. 
In  a  private  letter,  dated  February  21st,  Stephens 
stated  that  he  was  induced  to  accept  "from  no  motive  in 
the  world  but  a  desire  to  promote  the  public  weal. ' 7  He 
1 l  thought  it  would  have  that  effect  and  therefore  could 
not  decline."  Undoubtedly  it  helped  to  unite  all 

1In  advising  his  State  to  join  the  Southern  Confederacy  for 
commercial  reasons,  Governor  Price  of  New  Jersey  said:  "The 
Constitution  made  at  Montgomery  has  many  modifications  desired 
by  the  people  of  this  State"  (Powell  s  Nullification  and  Secession 
in  the  United  States,  pp.  373-4).  No  higher  tribute  could  have  been 
paid  to  the  merits  of  the  Confederate  Constitution  than  the  sug 
gestion  of  the  New  York  Herald  that  it  be  adopted  by  all  the  States. 
The  Southern  Republic,  of  Augusta,  Ga.,  date  of  March  22,1861, 
quoted  as  follows  from  the  Herald:  "Mr.  Seward  said  in  one  of 
his  speeches  that  the  North  did  not  know  what  the  Cotton  States 
wanted,  and  that  it  was  time  enough  to  take  action  toward  recon 
ciliation  when  the  demands  of  the  South  were  officially  ascer 
tained  ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  has  declared  in  favor  of  a  convention  to 
adopt  amendments  to  the  Constitution.  Now,  by  the  unanimous 
adoption  of  the  new  Constitution  by  the  Southern  Congress,  the 
President,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  Republican  party  know 
what  the  South  wants;  and  as  there  is  nothing  unreasonable  in 
their  demands,  and  as  nothing  less  will  satisfy  the  Southern  States, 
the  best  course  for  the  border  States  and  all  the  other  States,  North 
and  South,  to  pursue  is  to  adopt  this  instrument  of  reconstruction. 
As  seven  States  are  now  out  of  the  Union,  which  will  not  be  rep 
resented  in  the  convention  proposed  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  only 
practicable  mode  of  restoring  harmony  is  the  adoption  of  the  new 
Southern  Constitution  by  three-fourths  of  the  States  in  the  mode 
required  by  our  present  Constitution.  We  shall  then  have  a  per 
fect  Union  never  to  be  broken." 

The  answer  of  The  Southern  Republic  is  no  less  interesting,  and 


238  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

factions  and  elements.  The  choice  of  Jefferson  Davis 
for  the  first  place  is  said  to  have  been  a  surprise  to 
himself  and  many  others.  What  the  hero  of  Buena 
Vista  and  the  Secretary  of  War  under  the  Pierce  ad 
ministration  desired  was  the  chief  command  of  the 
army,  in  the  event  of  war.  The  Georgia  delegation 
had  unanimously  agreed  to  present  the  name  of 
Toonibs.  South  Carolina's  delegates  were  also  under 
stood  to  favor  either  him  or  Stephens,  but  when  the 
suggestion  was  made  to  the  latter  by  one  of  the 
Carolina  delegation,  he  promptly  declared  that  he  did 
not  want  the  office  and,  moreover,  did  not  consider  it 
appropriate,  as  he  had  opposed  secession.1  Stephens 
himself  favored  Toombs  as  "  by  far  the  best  fitted  for 
the  position,  looking  to  all  the  qualifications  necessary 
to  meet  its  full  requirements. "  2  But  when  it  was 
found  that  delegates  from  Florida,  Alabama,  Mis 
sissippi,  and  Louisiana  had  agreed  to  support  Davis, 
Toombs  withdrew  his  name  and  the  convention 


clearly  indicates  that  the  breach  was  too  wide  to  be  healed  in  this 
or  any  other  manner.  It  was  in  part  as  follows  :  ' '  The  Herald 
might  as  well  appeal  to  winter,  as  it  glistens  cold  and  bright  upon 
the  New  England  hills,  to  melt  and  soften  into  summer  at  a  word, 
as  to  the  Northern  States  to  adopt  that  Constitution.  It  would  be 
as  easy  to  storm  Fort  Sumter  by  logic,  or  lure  the  United  States 
troops  at  Forts  Pickens,  Jefferson  and  Taylor  from  their  positions 
by  a  tune  upon  a  jew's-harp,  as  to  make  them  do  it.  If  some 
mighty,  almost  miraculous  power  were  to  influence  them  to  adopt 
it,  it  would  be  too  late  so  far  as  the  Confederate  States  are  con 
cerned.  They  have  come  out  from  under  a  pall  of  gloom  and 
prospective  ruin.  .  .  .  The  Confederate  States  could  not  forget 
the  treachery  of  the  North,  the  insults  to  which  they  have  been 
subjected,  the  wounds  they  have  received.  The  Herald,  however, 
can  do  much  good.  Let  it  go  on  and  preach  peace,  for  the  good  of 
both  sections  and  the  interests  of  humanity." — From  a  clipping 
in  a  private-scrap  took  of  the  war  period. 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  pp.  389-390. 

8  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  II,  pp.  329-333. 


VICE-PKESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      239 

amicably  united  on  the  former,   who  was  no  doubt 
the  popular  choice. 

The  permanent  Confederate  Constitution  was  com 
pleted  and  unanimously  adopted  on  March  llth,  by  the 
seven  States  represented,  Texas  having  seceded  on 
February  14th,  and  sent  her  delegates.  Meanwhile 
Jefferson  Davis  had  arrived  at  Montgomery,  having 
accepted  the  position  tendered  him,  and  was  formally 
inaugurated  on  February  18th.  The  newspapers  of  the 
time  state  that  the  choice  of  Davis  and  Stephens  was 
received  everywhere  with  demonstrations  of  great 
enthusiasm,  one  hundred  guns  being  fired  at  Mont 
gomery  in  honor  of  the  event.  Similar  demonstrations 
marked  the  inaugural  which  was  accompanied  by  all 
the  dignity,  but  necessarily  less  of  the  pomp,  with 
which  we  are  familiar  at  Washington  on  such  occa 
sions.  Stephens  had  publicly  accepted,  on  February 
llth,  the  position  of  Yice-President,  and  con 
trived  that  the  formalities  should  be  of  the  simplest 
character.  His  private  correspondence  contains  the 
following  references  to  his  election  and  assumption  of 
office: 

February  9th. — "  We  have  just  elected  the  President 
and  Yice-President  of  the  Confederacy.  Mr.  Davis,  of 
Mississippi,  was  unanimously  chosen  President,  and 
I  was  unanimously  chosen  Yice-President.  I  knew 
that  such  was  the  understanding  as  to  what  would  be 
the  result,  and  did  not  go  to  the  hall  when  the  election 
took  place.  The  vote  was  cast  by  States. " 

February  10th. — i  i  To-morrow  I  am  to  be  inaugurated, 
or  signify  my  acceptance  and  take  the  oath  of  office 
publicly  in  the  Congress  hall  at  twelve  o'  clock.  .  .  . 
I  almost  shrink  from  the  responsibilities  I  shall  as 
sume.  To  making  any  speech  on  the  occasion  I  have 


240  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

a  strong  aversion  ;  but  such  is  the  request  in  the  letter 
asking  my  acceptance. " 

February  llth. — u  This,  as  you  know,  is  my  birthday 
[aged  forty -nine]  ;  and  this  day  at  the  hour  of  one  I 
was  inaugurated  (if  such  be  the  proper  term)  Vice- 
President  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America.  The 
coincidence,  altogether  accidental,  made  a  marked 
impression  on  my  mind.  The  remarks  I  made  .  .  . 
were  delivered  as  if  extemporaneous,  though  they  had 
been  written  and  committed  to  memory.  I  wrote 
them  down  this  morning  before  going  to  the  Capitol. 
There  was,  I  suspect,  great  disappointment  at  their 
brevity.  I  had  been  urged  to  make  a  speech,  and 
a  very  large  crowd  was  assembled  to  hear  it.  I  was 
satisfied  that  such  a  course  would  be  injudicious, 
indelicate  and  improper.  Since  it  is  all  over,  a  great 
many  have  told  me  that  I  did  exactly  right.  I  was 
governed  entirely  by  my  own  judgment  and  sense  of 
propriety  in  the  matter. " 

On  February  15th,  the  Confederate  Congress  provided 
that  after  his  inauguration  the  President  of  the  seven 
seceded  States  should  appoint  three  commissioners  to 
be  sent  to  Washington  "  for  the  purpose  of  negotiating 
friendly  relations"  and  "for  the  settlement  of  all 
questions  of  disagreement"  between  the  two  govern 
ments,  including  that  of  just  compensation  for  forts 
held  by  the  United  States  in  Confederate  territory, 
which  now  must  necessarily  be  relinquished.  These 
appointments  were  promptly  made  and  the  commis 
sioners  proceeded  to  Washington,  where,  on  March  12th, 
they  addressed  a  note  to  Secretary  Seward,  informing 
him  of  their  mission  and  their  government's  pacific 
purposes.  Seward  refused  to  receive  them  officially 
or  even  to  see  them  personally,  but  their  dispatches  to 
the  Confederate  government  show  that  there  were 


VICE-PKESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      241 

unofficial  communications  from  him  through  Justice 
John  A.  Campbell,  who  assured  them  that  the  dis 
position  of  the  Lincoln  administration  was  pacific,  that 
it  was  desired  that  a  direct  answer  be  not  pressed  at 
the  moment  and  that  Fort  Sumter  would  probably 
be  evacuated  in  a  short  time. 

Further  assurances  were  sent  the  commissioners 
through  Justice  Campbell  some  ten  days  later.  Not  un 
til  April  7th,  when  it  was  known  that  the  relief  squad 
ron  of  eleven  ships  had  •  left  New  York  to  reinforce 
Fort  Sumter,  did  they  become  really  alarmed,  and  not 
until  April  8th  did  they  receive  the  " memorandum" 
explaining  the  position  of  the  United  States  govern 
ment.  In  their  letter  of  April  9th  to  Seward  the  Con 
federate  commissioners  bitterly  reproached  him  for  not 
placing  this  memorandum,  dated  March  15th,  in  their 
hands  until  the  8th  of  April,  and  meanwhile  leading 
them  to  believe  that  Fort  Sumter  would  not  be  rein 
forced.1  Justice  Campbell  shared  their  indignation, 
for  he  had  been  assured  by  written  message  almost  at 
the  last  minute  :  "  Faith  as  to  Sumter  fully  kept — 
wait  and  see."  In  his  letter  to  Seward,  date  of  April 
13th,  Justice  Campbell  charged  that  the  Confederate 
commissioners  had  been  "  abused  and  overreached" 
and  that  the  l  i  equivocating  conduct  of  the  administra 
tion  ' '  was  l  i  the  proximate  cause  of  the  great  calamity ' ' 
that  had  followed  at  Fort  Sumter.  He  felt  outraged 
by  the  part  he  had  been  made  to  play,  and  this  is 
understood  to  have  hastened  his  resignation  from  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  which,  however, 
would  probably  have  followed  in  any  case,  his  native 
State  of  Alabama  having  seceded. 

Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  II,  pp.  345-355,  735-743. 


242  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

It  is  quite  clear  that  Seward  deluded  or  detained  the 
unsuspecting  Confederate  commissioners  with  promises 
until  his  government  had  decided  what  course  to  pur 
sue,  although  at  the  outset  he  may  have  inclined  to 
ward  the  proposition  to  evacuate  Fort  Sumter.  This 
was  recommended  by  General  Winfield  Scott,  and  the 
question  was  seriously  discussed  on  March  15th  in  an 
executive  session  of  the  Senate,  where  the  Democrats 
favored  the  withdrawal  of  the  troops  from  all  the  forts 
in  the  South  except  Key  West  and  Tortugas.  It  was 
telegraphed  throughout  the  country  on  March  14th  that 
Fort  Sumter  was  to  be  evacuated.  If  Lincoln  and 
Seward  changed  their  minds,  it  was  doubtless  after  the 
governors  of  seven  Northern  States  went  to  Washington 
to  urge  an  aggressive  policy,  and  after  other  signs  of 
the  public  temper  at  the  North  had  been  carefully  ob 
served.  That  the  administration  was  for  some  time 
uncertain  what  course  to  pursue,  and  that  the  Secretary 
of  State  was  at  first  disposed  to  take  a  good  deal  upon 
himself  are  clearly  indicated  by  the  "  memorandum  " 
submitted  to  Lincoln  by  Seward  in  which  the  critical 
assertion  was  made  that  at  the  end  of  a  month's  ad 
ministration  (that  is,  on] April  4th),  the  government  was 
still  without  a  policy,  and  that,  among  others,  the 
question  of  the  forts  in  the  South  was  still  unsettled. 1 

Stephens  declared  in  his  Constitutional  View  with,  for 
him,  unusual  heat,  that  "  the  whole  conduct  of  the 
Confederate  commissioners  was  marked  with  perfect 
frankness  and  integrity  of  purpose,  while  they  were  met 
with  an  equivocation,  a  duplicity,  a  craft,  and  deceit, 
which,  taken  altogether,  is  without  a  parallel  in  modern 
times!"  The  irritation  in  the  South  caused  by  such 
1  Carl  Schurz,  Abraham  Lincoln,  pp.  67-73. 


VICE-PKESIDENT  OF  CONFEDEBACY      243 

"  crooked  paths  of  diplomacy,'7  as  Davis  characterized 
Seward's  policy,  was  necessarily  intense.  And  it  was 
perfectly  natural,  from  the  Southern  view-point,  to 
regard  the  dispatch  of  the  relief  squadron  as  an  act  of 
war.  The  theory  held  by  Lincoln  and  Seward,  how 
ever  sincerely,  that  the  seceded  States  were  not  out  of 
the  Union  and  could  not  go  out,  but  were  in  rebellion 
against  constituted  authority,  made  no  difference  so  far 
as  this  point  was  concerned.  It  could  only  have  been 
fully  understood  at  Washington  that,  under  the  circum 
stances,  the  dispatch  of  relief  to  Fort  Sumter  would 
force  the  issue  and  precipitate  the  conflict. 

In  spite  of  all  the  excitement  and  irritation,  how 
ever,  the  order  to  reduce  Fort  Sumter  was  reluctantly 
sent  from  Montgomery,  where  the  policy  was  not  unan 
imously  supported  and  where  a  most  earnest  desire 
to  avoid  a  hazardous  war  predominated.  Even  the 
fiery  Toombs  is  reported  to  have  urged  that  i  i  it  will 
lose  us  every  friend  that  we  have  in  the  North."  l 
But  if  the  Confederate  government  had  faltered  at  this 
point,  it  would  have  been  open  to  the  charge  of  weak 
ness  and  would  have  virtually  abandoned  its  cause  at 
the  outset.  There  is  no  record  of  Stephens'  s  attitude 
at  the  moment,  but  in  his  history  he  justified  the 
action  at  Montgomery  and  contended  that  the  war  "  wa£, 
inaugurated  and  begun  when  the  hostile  fleet  styled' 
the  relief  squadron,  with  eleven  ships  carrying  285' 
guns  and  2,400  men,  was  sent  out  from  New  York  and 
Norfolk  to  reinforce  Fort  Sumter,  peaceably  if  per 
mitted,  l  but  forcibly  if  they  must.'  "  a 

Whether  Lincoln  deliberately  forced  the   issue  in 


Life  of  Robert  Toombs,  p.  226. 
s  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  II,  pp.  34-39,  43. 


244  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

order  to  unite  the  hesitating,  doubting  Northern 
masses,  that  result  was  now  attained  and  within  two 
days  of  Major  Anderson's  capitulation,1  he  put  forth  his 
proclamation  calling  for  75, 000  troops  with  no  fear  of 
consequences.  This  proclamation  solidified  the  South 
ern  masses  in  turn.  Many  of  them  might  regret  the 
old  Union  established  by  their  fathers,  but  the  new  and 
separate  Southern  Union  was  a  fact,  and  this,  their 
country,  was  to  be  invaded;  they  had  accepted  the 
theory  that  a  sovereign  State  could  not  and  would  not 
be  coerced,  and  had  not  expected  war,  but  now  the  in 
vader  was  coming,  and  they  must  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  in  defense  of  native  soil,  forgetting  all  past 
divisions  and  differences.  Yet  even  at  this  stage  the 
gravity  of  the  situation  was  but  imperfectly  under 
stood.  To  the  Southern  mind  it  was  incredible  that  so 
much  blood  and  treasure  would  be  sacrificed  in  order 

^he  spectacular  and  bloodless  affair  at  Charleston  was  made  a 
subject  of  jest  by  the  London  Times,  which  informed  its  readers 
that  the  ladies  turned  out  to  view  a  contest  in  which  no  one  was 
hurt ;  that  a  telling  shot  from  Fort  Sumter  was  as  generously  ap 
plauded  as  one  from  Fort  Moultrie ;  that  when  the  American  flag 
was  shot  away,  Beauregard  sent  another  for  Anderson  to  fight 
under  ;  that  when  the  fort  took  fire  the  polite  enemy,  who  had 
labored  to  cause  the  conflagration,  gave  equally  energetic  assist 
ance  in  putting  it  out ;  and  that  the  only  cause  of  indignation  dur 
ing  the  whole  affair  was  the  conduct  of  the  Northern  flotilla  in 
keeping  at  a  safe  distance  and  taking  no  part  in  the  fray,  the  South 
erners  resenting  this  as  an  act  of  treachery  to  their  admired  enemy, 
Major  Anderson. 

Very  different  was  the  same  newspaper's  comment  at  a  later 
day  when  the  Confederacy's  earlier  successes  in  the  field  were  the 
talk  of  the  world.  "  There  can  hardly  be  a  citizen  of  the  Federal 
States,"  said  the  London  Times,  "  who  will  not  feel  bitter  envy  as 
he  reads  the  address  of  the  Southern  President  on  the  success  of 
the  Confederacy's  arms.  The  language  of  that  address  is  familiar 
to  the  history  and  still  more  to  the  imagination  of  the  Americans. 
All  the  topics  are  those  which  that  nation  has  latterly  claimed  for 
its  own.  A  people  suddenly  thrown  on  its  defense,  and  though 


VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      245 

to  bind  a  few  unwilling  States  to  a  Union  that  would 
be  freer  and  therefore  better  off  without  them.  Dis 
cussing  "  the  cuckoo  cry  "  that  "  the  nation  "  must  be 
saved,  the  Richmond  Examiner  said  :  "  The  Confeder 
ate  States  can  support  a  national  existence  very  well 
for  themselves ;  why  cannot  the  North  do  likewise  ! 
And  how  unworthy  of  any  nation  is  the  plea  that  it 
must  die  a  political  death  if  they  lose  their  association 
with  another  which  desires  to  get  rid  of  the  fellow 
ship  !  "  When  the  North  found  that  the  South  was 
determined  to  win  independence  at  any  cost,  would  not 
the  former  reconsider  and  leave  the  latter  in  peace,  on 
the  common-sense  principle  that  the  game  was  not 
worth  the  candle  ?  The  issue  of  the  contest  between 
the  governor  of  New  York  and  the  governor  of  Georgia 
no  doubt  encouraged  many  in  the  South  to  believe  that 
equal  firmness,  resource  and  daring  on  the  part  of  the 

unprovided  with  ships,  arms,  powder  and  even  food,  hurling  back 
in  disorder  and  disgrace  fleets  and  armies  on  the  scale  of  a  Xerxes 
or  a  Darius ;  multiplying  its  hosts  by  rapidity  of  movement, 
strengthening  its  unprovisioned  fortresses  by  concealing  their  weak 
ness  ;  sacrificing  gain,  comfort  and  every  earthly  consideration  to 
patriotism — this  is  the  particular  portraiture  of  greatness  on  which 
the  American  citizen  fondly  gazes  and  sees  his  own  image.  He 
panted  and  pined  for  at  least  one  more  occasion  in  which  the  earn 
est  of  his  budding  glory,  given  eighty  years  ago,  might  be  more 
largely  realized  on  the  grand  scale  of  modern  warfare.  .  .  . 
There  was  a  time  when  we,  on  this  side,  sometimes  smiled  at  these 
dreams.  Greece  would  never  transfer  itself  to  the  Potomac,  or  the 
Rappahannock  become  a  classic  stream.  But  this  has  come  to 
pass  and  these  visions  have  been  fulfilled.  The  parts,  however, 
were  not  as  expected.  It  is  the  American  himself — the  American 
of  the  boastful,  prosperous,  teeming  North — who  is  the  furious, 
multitudinous,  but  discomfited  invader.  He  is  himself  repelled, 
shattered  and  prostrated.  It  is  from  him,  not  for  him,  that  all  this 
glory  has  been  won.  In  this  famous  world-wide  story,  which  will 
be  told  for  all  ages,  he  is  the  savage  invader,  crushed  to  the  ground, 
trodden  under  foot,  or  driven  into  outer  darkness." — From  a 
private  scrap-book  of  the  war  period. 


246  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Confederate  government  would  command  an  early 
peace.  Apparently  there  were  few  who,  like  Stephens, 
foresaw  the  magnitude  of  the  coming  conflict. 

Two  days  after  President  Lincoln's  proclamation,  the 
"  mother  of  States,"  whose  Peace  Convention  was  still 
in  session  at  Washington,  withdrew  from  the  Union 
and  proclaimed  herself  an  independent  commonwealth, 
her  governor  having  previously  replied  to  the  call  for 
Virginia's  quota  of  2,340  men  that  no  troops  would  be 
furnished  for  "an  object  not  within  the  purview  of 
the  Constitution  or  the  laws."  In  likewise  refusing  to 
furnish  the  desired  quota,  the  governor  of  North  Caro 
lina  (still  in  the  Union)  described  the  aggressive  policy 
of  the  Eepublican  administration  as  "  in  violation  of 
the  Constitution  and  a  usurpation  of  power."  The 
governor  of  Arkansas  (still  in  the  Union)  declared  that 
the  demand  for  troops  for  such  a  purpose  added  insult 
to  injury.  The  reply  of  Tennessee  (still  in  the  Union) 
was  "not  a  man  for  purposes  of  coercion,  but  50,000 
if  necessary  for  the  defense  of  our  rights  and  those  of 
our  Southern  brethren."  The  replies  of  the  border 
States,  which  announced  and  maintained  the  status  of 
neutrals,  thus  asserting  State  sovereignty  as  positively 
as  did  the  seceding  States  themselves,  were  no  less  em 
phatic.  Lincoln  was  informed  that  Kentucky  would 
furnish  no  troops  "for  the  wicked  purpose  of  subduing 
her  sister  Southern  States."  The  governor  of  Mary 
land  refused  to  answer  the  call  unless  it  should  be 
necessary  "to  defend  the  national  capital."  The  gov 
ernor  of  Delaware  replied  that  he  had  no  authority  to 
comply  with  such  a  requisition.  The  governor  of  Mis 
souri  denounced  the  requisition  as  "illegal,  unconsti 
tutional,  and  revolutionary  in  its  objects,  inhuman  and 


VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      247 

diabolical."  1  Even  in  the  free-labor  States  there  was 
vigorous  and  outspoken  opposition  to  the  policy  of  the 
administration. 

On  April  17th,  Stephens  wrote  from  Montgomery : 
"  It  is  expected  here  that  Virginia  will  secede,  and  all  the 
border  States  will  follow  her ;  and  then  I  think  the 
whole  North  will  consolidate.  This  will  keep  the  Re 
publicans  in  power.  This  is  perhaps  what  they  are 
mainly  aiming  at."  The  expected  event  took  place  on 
the  day  this  was  written,  and  on  the  19th  Stephens 
started  for  Richmond  in  the  capacity  of  commissioner 
"to  negotiate  an  alliance"  with  the  commonwealth  of 
Virginia,  ' t  according  to  the  constitutions  of  both  pow 
ers."  After  due  discussion,  a  convention  was  agreed 
on,  providing  that  Virginia  should  join  the  union  of  the 
Confederate  States  and  cede  to  the  latter  "  all  the  pub 
lic  property,  naval  stores,  munitions  of  war,"  etc., 
"acquired  from  the  United  States,"  "on  the  same 
terms  and  in  like  manner  as  the  other  States  of  the 
Confederacy  have  done  in  like  cases."  The  articles 
of  agreement  were  promptly  ratified  by  the  Virginia 
Assembly.  It  was  provided,  however,  that  this  ordi 
nance  should  not  go  into  effect  unless  the  people  of  the 
State  endorsed  the  ordinance  of  secession,  which  they 
did  soon  after  by  a  vote  of  125,950  to  20,373. 

After  his  arrival  in  Richmond  on  April  22d,  Stephens 
wrote  home :  "We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  tremendous  con 
flict  between  the  sections.  Sentiment  is  rapidly  con 
solidating  on  both  sides  of  the  line.  North  Carolina 
is  in  a  blaze  from  one  extremity  to  the  other.  I  had 
to  make  a  speech  at  all  the  stations.  .  .  .  Our 
people  in  Georgia  have  no  idea  of  the  feelings  enter- 
1  Larned's  History  for  Ready  Reference,  Vol.  V,  pp.  3424-5. 


248  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

tained  here  of  the  dangers  of  war.  All  the  cities  and 
towns  of  Virginia  are  under  guard  day  and  night  j  and 
all  persons  not  able  to  give  an  account  of  themselves 
are  taken  up."  Ill-starred  Virginia  dimly  foresaw 
that  her  bosom  was  to  be  the  battle-field  of  the  war  and 
would  bear  the  scars  for  a  generation,  but  she  did  not 
dream  that  more  than  a  third  of  her  very  soil  would  be 
alienated  by  the  government  to  which  she  had  gener 
ously  ceded  in  earlier  times  her  vast  Western  claims. 
On  April  25th,  Stephens  wrote:  "The  work  of  my 
mission  is  in  suspense  before  the  convention.  The 
Virginians  will  debate  and  speak,  though  war  be  at 
their  gates.'7  Decision  and  action,  however,  were 
prompt,  as  has  been  noted. 

His  purpose  accomplished,  Stephens  returned  south 
ward,  and  on  April  29th  wrote  from  his  home  in  Georgia  : 
4 1  Never  was  the  country  so  thoroughly  roused  from 
the  Eio  Grande  to  the  Canada  line.  The  feeling  at  the 
North  is  just  as  intense,  from  all  I  can  learn,  as  it  is  at 
the  South.  I  feel  anxious  to  see  the  message  of  Presi 
dent  Davis  delivered  to-day.  I  trust  he  will  recom 
mend  defensive  measures  only.  If  we  act  on  the  de 
fensive  strictly  we  may  yet  avoid  a  general  war." 
From  Montgomery  on  May  4th  he  wrote  :  "I  expect  a 
prolonged  and  bloody  conflict.  I  have  never  believed 
that  a  separation  of  the  States  of  the  old  Confederation 
would  take  place  without  a  severe  conflict  of  arms." 
After  privately  announcing  to  Linton  Stephens  the  de 
cision  to  move  the  Confederate  government  to  Bich- 
mond  in  the  following  July,  he  wrote  on  May  14th  :  "I 
will  not  permit  myself  to  doubt  that  the  people  of  the 
South  will  prove  equal  to  the  crisis.  I  do  not  concur 
with  those  who  think  we  shall  have  a  short  war.  I 


VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  CONFEDERACY      249 

wish  I  could. "  Referring  on  May  25th  to  a  report 
that  he  predicted  little  fighting,  he  wrote  :  "  I  have 
been  of  the  contrary  opinion  all  the  time. '  '  On  May  30th : 
"All  Lincoln's  cabinet,  except  Blair,  were  opposed 
to  the  war  at  first — honestly,  as  I  think.  They  were 
driven  into  it  by  such  men  as  Cassius  M.  Clay,  Jim 
Lane  and  the  Republican  governors." 

Having  been  summoned  from  his  home  to  Montgom 
ery  by  a  telegram  from  Davis,  on  April  17th,  Stephens 
wrote  :  "  He  wished  to  consult  me  about  receiving  vol 
unteers  from  the  border  States,  the  issuing  of  letters  of 
marque,  and  other  matters  relating  to  the  state  of  the 
country.  A  proclamation  will  be  forthcoming  to-mor 
row,  I  expect,  inviting  privateering.  The  proclama 
tion  will  be  put  forth  to  let  the  Northern  merchants 
know  what  they  may  expect,  and  to  have  privateers 
ready." 

The  expected  proclamation  was  issued  by  the  Con 
federacy's  President  two  days  later.  There  were  two 
immediate  results.  One  was  the  instruction  of  United 
States  ministers  to  negotiate  with  the  European  Powers 
with  a  view  to  making  the  United  States  a  party  to 
the  Paris  compact  of  1856  abolishing  privateering. 
The  other  was  Lincoln's  proclamation  announcing  a 
blockade  of  the  Southern  ports  and  declaring  that 
Southern  privateers  would  be  treated  as  pirates.  In 
ternational  opinion,  however,  could  not  be  expected 
to  regard  either  Southern  or  Northern  privateers  as 
pirates  because  the  United  States  had  not  joined 
Great  Britain,  France,  Russia,  Prussia,  Austria  and 
Turkey,  when  in  1856  those  countries  had  agreed  to 
abolish  privateering.  Earl  Russell,  therefore,  insisted 
that  the  proposed  convention  should  have  no  bearing 


250  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

on  the  " internal  difficulties"  in  the  United  States; 
and  as  Minister  Adams  would  not  assent  to  this,  the 
United  States  again  failed  to  become  a  party  to  the 
Paris  compact  of  1856. 

This  action  of  Earl  Russell,  England's  recognition 
on  May  6th  of  the  Confederate  States  as  belligerents, 
and  Queen  Victoria's  proclamation  on  May  13th  of 
neutrality  between  the  belligerents  were  not  only  of 
immense  advantage  to  the  Confederacy  as  such,  but 
subserved  the  interests  of  humanity.  It  was  impos 
sible  to  treat  eleven  States  with  a  white  population  of 
five  millions  and  with  great  armies  in  the  field  other 
wise  than  as  belligerents.  If  the  theory  that  the  Con 
federates  were  rebels  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that 
term,  and  that  Confederate  privateers  were  pirates, 
had  been  acted  upon,  a  series  of  appalling  events 
would  have  followed,  which  would  have  filled  the 
world  with  horror,  and  which  every  American  would 
soon  have  blushed  to  recall. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

/ 

THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR 

(V 

A  DISCUSSION  of  the  battles  of  the  war  of  1861-5 
would  not  be  an  appropriate  feature  of  this  chronicle, 
its  subject  having  taken  no  part  in  the  operations  in 
the  field.  The  military  history  of  the  great  struggle 
may  be  dismissed  with  the  single  statement  that  the 
record  of  valiant  fighting  on  both  sides  of  the  line  is 
one  of  which  all  Americans  of  the  present  day  may 
well  be  proud.  A  brief  general  account  of  the  diffi 
culties  which  faced  the  Confederates,  and  of  the  priva 
tions  they  suffered,  is,  however,  an  essential  part  of 
this  narrative,  Stephens  having  foreseen  them  more 
clearly  perhaps  than  any  of  his  associates,  and  having 
striven  earnestly  to  provide  for  better  conditions  by 
the  prompt  export  and  storing  of  cotton  abroad.  In 
a  sense  also  he  was  in  his  own  person  one  of  the  Con 
federacy's  heavy  handicaps,  as  will  be  shown.  There 
is  much  truth  in  the  declaration  of  Benjamin  H.  Hill 
that  "the  cause  was  lost  by  our  own  dissensions,"  and 
no  other  man  contributed  to  those  dissensions  in  so 
large  a  measure  as  Stephens. 

But  of  these  things  later.  We  must  now  refer  to 
the  damage  done  at  the  outset  by  his  speech,  delivered 
at  Savannah  on  March  21,  1861,  in  which  he  exalted 
negro  slavery  as  ideal  and  as  the  very  "  corner-stone  " 
of  the  new  and  proud  edifice  of  the  Confederacy. 
Many  years  afterward  a  Scotch  clergyman  testified  to 


252  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

the  " thrill  of  horror"  caused  by  the  reports  of  that 
speech  in  the  British  Isles,  where  the  people,  from  the 
Queeii  to  the  peasant,  had  wept  over  the  woes  of  those 
unearthly  saints  and  martyrs  with  black  skins  who 
figured  in  the  pages  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  Speaking 
as  Vice-President  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America, 
Stephens  said : 

' '  The  new  Constitution  has  put  at  rest  forever  all 
the  agitating  questions  relating  to  our  peculiar  institu 
tion — African  slavery  as  it  exists  among  us — the 
proper  status  of  the  negro  in  our  form  of  civilization. 
This  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  late  rupture  and 
present  revolution.  Jefferson,  in  his  forecast,  had  an 
ticipated  this  as  the  'rock  upon  which  the  Union 
would  split.'  He  was  right.  What  was  conjecture 
with  him  is  now  realized  fact.  But  whether  he  fully 
comprehended  the  great  truth  upon  which  that  rock 
stood  and  stands  may  be  doubted.  The  prevailing 
ideas  entertained  by  him  and  most  of  the  leading- 
statesmen  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  old  Con 
stitution  were  that  the  enslavement  of  the  African 
was  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature ;  that  it  was 
wrong  in  principle,  socially,  morally  and  politically. 
It  was  an  evil  they  knew  not  well  how  to  deal  with, 
but  the  general  opinion  of  the  men  of  that  day  was 
that,  somehow  or  other  in  the  order  of  Providence,  the 
institution  would  be  evanescent  and  pass  away.  This 
idea,  though  not  incorporated  in  the  Constitution,  was 
the  prevailing  idea  at  that  time.  The  Constitution,  it 
is  true,  secured  every  essential  guarantee  to  the  insti 
tution  while  it  should  last,  and  hence  no  argument  can 
be  justly  urged  against  the  constitutional  guaranties 
thus  secured,  because  of  the  common  sentiment  of  the 
day.  Those  ideas,  however,  were  fundamentally  wrong. 
They  rested  upon  the  assumption  of  the  equality  of 
races.  This  was  an  error. 

"Our  new  government  is  founded  upon  exactly  the 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR  253 

opposite  idea ;  its  foundations  are  laid,  its  corner-stone 
rests  upon  the  great  truth  that  the  negro  is  not  equal 
to  the  white  man ;  that  slavery — subordination  to  the 
superior  race — is  his  natural  and  normal  condition 
.  .  .  in  conformity  with  the  ordinance  of  the 
Creator.  .  .  .  Our  Confederacy  is  founded  upon 
principles  in  strict  conformity  with  these  [Divine] 
laws.  This  stone  which  was  rejected  by  the  first 
builders  '  is  become  the  chief  of  the  corner 1 — the  real 
4  corner-stone '  in  our  new  edifice. " 

A  man  of  generous  sympathies,  of  broad  humanity, 
a  democrat  of  democrats,  a  friend  of  all  the  world, 
Stephens"  was  the  very  last  of  the  Southern  leaders  that 
one  would  expect  to  make  slavery  the  all-important 
question,  fet  he  went  further  than  any  of  them  in  his 
public  utterances  on  this  subject,)  thus  obscuring  the 
fundamental  issue  of  State  rights  and  doing  incalcu 
lable  damage  to  the  Confederate  cause.)  A  year  before 
he  had  expressed  the  fear  that  "ifthere  were  only 
slave  States  in  the  new  Confederacy "  it  would  "be 
known  as  the  Black  Eepublic  and  be  without  the 
sympathy  of  the  world,"  but  now  he  seemed  to  im 
agine  that  the  same  world  could  be  brought  by  argu 
ment  to  another  view.  Nothing  is  more  certain  even 
in  our  time  than  that  such  a  race  as  the  negro,  when 
placed  in  association  with  Americans  or  Europeans, 
must  inevitably  occupy  a  subordinate  position  ;  but  to 
see  in  this  unquestionable  condition  an  excuse  and 
mandate  for  either  formal  or  actual  slavery  was  not 
reason  but  persuasion  induced  by  impelling  circum 
stances.  Stephens  honestly  confused  the  two  things 
and  imagined  that  on  this  subject  he  and  the  other 
later  Southern  leaders  were  wiser  than  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  all  the  slavery -condemning  "fathers" 


254  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

of  the  South.  But  if  the  foresight  of  a  year  before 
had  not  been  absent,  he  would  now  have  stressed  the 
"peculiar  institution'7  less  in  speaking  for  the  world 
to  hear  and  dwelt  on  the  violated  constitutional  rights 
of  the  Southern  States  as  the  imperative  cause  of  seces 
sion.  His  " corner-stone"  speech  no  doubt  brought 
thousands  of  recruits  to  the  Northern  standard  and 
was  not  the  least  of  the  factors  concerned  in  the  pre 
vention  of  the  recognition  of  the  Confederacy  by  the 
governments  of  Europe.  / 

Among  other  handicaps,  two  of  the  most  serious  are 
to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Confederacy  was  hope 
lessly  outnumbered  in  available  fighting  men  and  in 
calculably  outclassed  in  material  resources.  In  the 
course  of  the  war  the  United  States  had  2,778,304 
troops  on  the  rolls,  and  the  strength  of  the  Federal 
army  at  the  close  of  the  struggle  was  797,007  present 
and  202,700  absent.  In  the  Confederate  army  at  the 
surrender,  according  to  the  official  estimate,1  there 
were  174,223  men.  This  number  includes  all  who 
were  paroled  between  April  and  November,  1865,  and 
among  these  are  counted  the  "  Tories  and  mossbacks" 
as  well  as  the  deserters,  numbering  from  eight  to  ten 
thousand  in  Alabama  alone,  who  came  forward  from 
their  hiding-places  to  surrender,2  much  to  the  indig 
nation  of  the  genuine  Confederate  soldiers.  The 
greatest  strength  of  the  Confederate  army,  present  and 
absent,  at  any  one  time  is  given  as  439,675,  on  Jan 
uary  1,  1864.  The  authority  just  cited  adds  250,000 
for  deaths  previous  to  that  time,  and,  allowing  for 

1  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  767-8. 

2  Fleming,  Civil    War  and    Reconstruction  in  Alabama,  pp.  118, 
127-8. 


THE  SOUTH'S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  255 

disability  and  desertion,  suggests  1,000,000  as  an  ap 
proximate  estimate  of  the  total  Confederate  enlist 
ments.  This  would  mean  one  soldier  in  every  five  of 
a  population  including  old  men,  women  and  children, 
and  is  manifestly  too  liberal  an  estimate,  especially  in 
the  case  of  a  section  where  large  families  of  children 
were  the  rule,  where  there  were  classes  exempted  from 
service  by  law,  and  where  the  Tory,  or  Union,  and 
otherwise  half-hearted  elements  were  of  more  con 
siderable  dimensions  than  is  generally  supposed.  The 
usual  estimate  among  Southern  writers  of  600,000  is 
probably  nearer  the  truth,  and,  in  the  absence  of  com 
plete  records,  may  be  accepted  as  at  least  approxi 
mately  correct. 

Some  light  is  thrown  on  this  question  by  a  passage 
in  a  letter  written  by  Stephens  on  August  27,  1862, 
referring  to  an  interview  with  the  Confederate  Secre 
tary  of  War  on  the  previous  day,  as  follows  : 

"  He  [the  Secretary  of  War]  is  against  the  extension 
of  the  Conscript  Act  to  the  age  of  forty-five.  If  more 
troops  should  be  wanted,  he  is  in  favor  of  calling  on 
the  governors  of  the  States  in  the  first  instance.  He 
says,  however,  and  truly,  I  think,  that  we  now  have 
in  the  field  as  many  as  we  can  clothe  and  feed  and 
arm.  There  are  on  the  rolls  about  four  hundred 
thousand. "  l 

If  four  hundred  thousand  were  as  many  soldiers  as 
the  Confederacy  could  "  clothe  and  feed  and  arm  "in 
1862,  much  less  than  half  that  number  could  have  been 
made  effective  in  the  field  during  the  last  year  of  the 

1  In  a  letter  written  six  months  later  Stephens  expressed  the 
opinion  that  Lincoln  would  "  not  call  out  a  great  many  more 
troops ;  he  will  keep  his  army  at  about  a  million  strong." 


256  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

war,  in  view  of  the  distressing  conditions  which  are  to 
be  pointed  out.  Napoleon  well  said  that  an  army  is 
like  a  serpent  in  that  it  moves  on  its  belly.  Even  if 
all  the  troops  desired  had  been  available,  the  Con 
federate  government  would  have  been  utterly  in 
capable  of  profitably  employing  them  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  war,  and  would,  indeed,  have  been 
embarrassed  by  their  presence  all  the  more,  for  they 
would  have  promptly  exhausted  the  scant  supplies 
that  were  carefully  husbanded  for  the  benefit  of  the 
half-starved  remnant  still  on  the  firing  line. 

It  is  true  that  the  estimate  of  600,000  enlistments 
does  not  agree  altogether  with  the  claims  of  the 
separate  States  as  to  the  number  of  soldiers  each 
contributed,  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  these 
claims  are  always  based  on  reliable  records.  Even  if 
there  were  no  more  than  600,000  enlistments,  one- 
eighth  of  the  entire  white  population  of  the  South  was 
found  in  the  Confederate  armies,  and  was  a  remark 
ably  large  representation  in  view  of  the  conditions 
which  will  be  shown,  and  of  the  fact  that  only  a  ma 
jority — not  the  whole  people — longed  for  independence 
and  were  determined  to  win  the  war  at  every  cost  of 
blood,  treasure  and  cruel  privation.  The  census  of 
1860  gave  the  eleven  States  of  the  Confederacy  a 
population  of  9,103,329,  including  West  Virginia  and 
eastern  Tennessee  which  contributed  so  largely  to  the 
Union  armies — a  loss  that  was  perhaps  offset  by 
the  soldiers  contributed  to  the  Confederacy  by  the  di 
vided  States  of  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri. 
From  these  nine  millions  must  be  subtracted,  as 
unavailable  material,  nearly  four  million  slaves, 
leaving  about  five  million  white  persons  of  both 


THE  SOUTH'S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  257 

sexes  and  all  ages  from  which  to  recruit  the  Con 
federate  armies.  The  census  of  1860  gives  the  United 
States  a  population  of  31,443,321.  The  States  out 
side  of  the  Confederacy,  therefore,  had  a  popula 
tion  of  22,339,992.  The  divided  States  of  Kentucky, 
Maryland  and  Missouri  had  a  combined  population, 
including  slaves,  of  3,024,745.  Even  if  we  deduct 
their  inhabitants  in  toto,  it  will  still  appear  that  the 
North  had  a  white  population  to  draw  from  four  times 
as  large  as  that  of  the  South,  and  with  the  same  effort 
could  muster  an  army  four  times  as  great.  In  addi 
tion  it  was  able  throughout  the  war  to  draw  enlist 
ments  from  Europe,  which  the  blockaded  South,  suf 
fering  for  the  want  of  funds  for  the  most  ordinary 
expenses,  could  not  do.  Official  statistics  furnished 
by  the  Federal  Secretary  of  War  have  been  cited  to 
show  that  more  than  700,000  foreigners  from  first  to 
last  were  induced  to  emigrate  and  enter  the  armies 
of  the  Union.1  Moreover,  there  were  178,975  negroes 
in  the  Northern  armies,  according  to  the  official 
figures,  and  large  numbers  of  these  were  slaves  escap 
ing  from  the  South.  The  census  of  1860  alone  is  im 
perishable  testimony  to  the  devotion  of  the  South  in 
the  field,  or — if  this  be  thoughtlessly  denied — to  the 
utter  lack  of  such  devotion  in  the  teeming,  prosperous, 
unfettered  North. 

The  Confederates  inevitably  did  their  best  work 
during  the  first  half  of  the  war  while  still  hopeful  of  a 
successful  issue,  before  the  South  had  exhausted  its 
limited  resources,  before  the  disagreements,  divided 
counsels,  and  errors  of  its  leaders  had  impaired  the 

1 J.  L.  M.  Curry,  Civil  History  of  the  Government  of  the  Confederate 
States,  p.  152. 


258  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

confidence  of  the  people,  and  before  fearful  hardships 
and  the  doubtful  outlook  had  weakened  the  determina 
tion  to  win  at  any  cost,  had  checked  voluntary  enlist 
ments,  and  had  induced  many  to  long  for  the  end  of 
war  even  with  defeat. 

The  straits  to  which  the  people  of  the  Confederacy 
were  reduced  by  the  blockade  of  their  ports  and  the 
interruption  of  commerce  between  North  and  South 
may  be  readily  understood  when  it  is  recalled  that  the 
institution  of  slavery  had  caused  the  Southern  States 
to  be  wholly  agricultural,  with  scarcely  a  manufactur 
ing  establishment  of  any  sort.  Food  was  at  first  gen 
erally  plentiful  and  was  always  sufficient  on  the  plan 
tations  of  the  lower  South,  but  in  a  land  of  small 
railroad  mileage  and  with  coastwise  commerce  at  an 
end  owing  to  the  blockade,  lack  of  transportation 
facilities  and  the  inward  advance  of  the  Federal  lines 
made  its  proper  distribution  difficult  from  the  outset 
and  finally  impossible.  Even  in  the  beginning  the  in 
sufficient  supply  of  ammunition  was  a  source  of 
anxiety.  "We  dare  not  make  known  the  condition  of 
the  army,"  wrote  a  Confederate  war  clerk  in  Richmond 
on  June  18,  1861, — "  the  awful  fact  that  we  have  not 
enough  ammunition  at  Manassas  to  fight  a  battle. 
There  are  not  percussion  caps  enough  in  the  army  for 
a  serious  skirmish."  l  Although  there  was  cotton  in 
abundance,  only  primitive  handlooms  were  now  avail 
able,  and  the  time  came  when  women  made  shirts  for 
their  husbands  out  of  their  own  petticoats.  An  Eng 
lish  correspondent  wrote  of  a  gown  worn  by  the  wife 
of  Senator  Clement  C.  Clay  at  a  ball  in  Richmond  in 
the  spring  of  1864  made  of  unbleached  homespun 
1  Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  Vol.  I,  p.  53. 


THE  SOUTH'S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE   259 

cotton  trimmed  with  gourd-seed  buttons  dyed  crimson. 
Delicately  bred  ladies  were  glad  to  get  coarse  brogan 
shoes  at  $100  a  pair  in  1863-4.  Calico  sold  at  $10  a 
yard  and  later  on  at  $25.  Even  as  far  South  as 
Georgia,  early  in  the  war  i  i  ordinary  fifteen  cent 
muslin  sold  at  $2.50  a  yard,"  says  Mrs.  Clement  C. 
Clay  in  her  memoirs.  In  Eichmond  physicians  felt 
forced  to  charge  $30  a  visit  and  the  cost  of  medicines 
was  enormous.  Newspapers  were  printed  finally  on 
the  back  of  wall  paper  and  sold  at  fifty  cents  a  copy. 
Parched  potato  coffee,  peanut  "  chocolate"  and 
orange-leaf  tea  were  prized  beverages.  Needles  were 
as  precious  as  heirlooms  and  locust  thorns  were  used 
instead.  High  and  low  were  glad  to  stoop  and  pick 
up  a  pin  wherever  found.  Bed  ink  was  made  of  poke- 
berries  and  black  ink  of  soot  mixed  with  vinegar. 
Salt  had  to  be  extracted  from  the  earthen  floors  of 
smoke-houses. 

On  December  5,  1864,  Stephens  wrote  from  Eich 
mond  that  he  was  paying  thirty  dollars  a  day  for 
meals  and  a  room,  and  added  :  ' i  Fuel,  lights,  and 
extras  generally  will  be  about  thirty  dollars  per  day 
more  ;  so  it  will  not  take  long  to  consume  my  salary."  l 

Throughout  the  South  the  prices  for  all  necessaries 
soared  upward,  owing  to  the  depreciation  of  the  Con 
federate  currency,  the  scarcity  of  merchandise  and  at 
many  points  even  of  food,  the  lack  of  transportation 
facilities,  and  the  tightening  grip  of  the  blockade. 
Both  the  soldiers  and  the  people  suffered  for  the  want 
of  medicines,  quinine  selling  at  $100  an  ounce  when  the 
war  was  only  half  over.  At  Eichmond  in  April,  1863, 
flour  brought  $36  a  barrel ;  in  October  of  the  same 
1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  475, 


260  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

year  $70  a  barrel.  "How  can  I  pay  such  prices t" 
asked  a  poor  woman.  "I  have  seven  children, — 
what  shall  I  do?"  "I  don't  know,  madam,"  replied 
the  dealer, — " unless  you  eat  your  children."  '  A 
year  later  flour  sold  in  Richmond  at  $275  a  barrel ;  in 
January,  1865,  at  $700  a  barrel,  and  on  March  20, 
1865,  at  $1,500  a  barrel.2  Many  people  suffered  for  the 
want  of  food  and  the  majority  lived  on  short  rations. 
The  Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  December  30,  1864,  quotes 
"  second-hand  shirts  at  auction  $40,"  blankets  $75; 
February  11,  1865,  men-slaves  $5,000  in  Confederate 
money  or  $100  in  gold ;  March  18,  1865,  bacon  $20  a 
pound,  meal  $140  a  bushel.  Correspondingly  prohibi 
tive  prices  for  other  food,  clothing  and  medicines 
were  demanded.  At  the  Oriental  Restaurant  in  Rich 
mond  3  in  1864  a  boiled  egg  cost  $2,  a  cup  of  coffee  $3, 
and  so  on. 

As  early  as  April  2,  1863,  President  Davis  checked 
a  bread  riot  in  Richmond  by  mounting  a  dray  and  ad 
dressing  the  people.  A  mob  of  a  thousand  persons, 
shouting  that  they  were  hungry,  rushed  into  "  diverse 
stores  of  the  speculators,"  and  helped  themselves. 
Davis  ' l  urged  them  to  return  to  their  homes,  so  that 
the  bayonets  now  threatening  them  might  be  used 
against  the  common  enemy.  He  told  them  that  such 
acts  would  bring  famine,  as  it  would  deter  people  from 
bringing  food  to  the  city.  He  said  he  was  willing  to 
share  his  last  loaf  with  the  suffering  people  (his  best 
horse  had  been  stolen  the  night  before)  and  he  trusted 
we  would  all  bear  our  privations  with  fortitude,  and 
continue  united  against  the  Northern  invaders  who 

1  Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  Vol.  II,  p.  78. 

8 Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  454.        3  The  Confederate  Scrap  Boole,  p.  136. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  261 

were  the  authors  of  all  our  sufferings."  *  The  poor 
and  the  salaried  clerks  were  not  the  only  sufferers ; 
even  the  President  of  the  Confederacy  was  embarrassed 
to  meet  his  expenses  on  a  salary  of  125,000  paid  in  a 
currency  so  depreciated  that  in  1864,  $33,  and  early  in 
1865,  $60  of  it  equaled  only  one  dollar  in  gold.  He 
was  able  to  give  few  receptions  or  entertainments  of 
any  kind,  and  he  had  cause  to  regret  that  he  had  de 
clined  the  gift  of  a  house  which  the  people  of  Eich- 
niond  had  offered  him. 

Senator  Clement  C.  Clay  wrote  from  Bichrnond  to 
his  wife  in  Macon  as  early  as  March,  1863  :  "  A  gen 
eral  gloom  prevails  here  because  of  the  scarcity  and 
high  price  of  food.  Our  soldiers  are  on  half  rations  of 
meat,  one- quarter  pound  of  salt,  one-half  pound  of 
fresh  meat,  without  vegetables  or  fruit  or  coffee  or 
sugar  !  Don't  mention  this,  as  it  will  do  harm  to  let 
it  get  abroad.  Eeally  there  is  serious  apprehension  of 
having  to  disband  part  of  the  army  for  want  of  food. 
In  this  city  the  poor  clerks  and  subaltern  military 
officers  are  threatened  with  starvation,  as  they  cannot 
get  board  on  their  pay.  God  only  knows  what  is  to 
become  of  us,  if  we  do  not  soon  drive  the  enemy  from 
Tennessee  and  Kentucky  and  get  food  from  their 
granaries.  ...  I  dined  with  the  President  yester 
day  at  six  P.  M.  en  fmnille  on  beef  soup,  beef  stew, 
meat  pie,  potatoes,  coffee  and  bread."  ' 

By  December  of  the  same  year,  the  soldiers  were  re 
duced  to  "  one  quarter  pound  of  fat  pork  with  a  little 
meal  or  a  little  flour,"  and  Lee  wrote  of  his  men  : 
1 1  Thousands  are  barefooted,  a  greater  number  partially 

1  Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  Vol.  I,  pp.  284-5. 
9  Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Clement  C.  Clay,  p.  194. 


262  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

shod  and  nearly  all  without  overcoats,  blankets,  or 
warm  clothing."  One  of  his  soldiers  wrote  to  him 
anonymously  that  "  although  a  gentleman,  he  had 
been  compelled  to  steal  "  in  order  to  satisfy  his  hunger. 
Some  officers  who  dined  with  Lee  about  this  time  re 
ported  that  the  meal  consisted  of  a  dish  of  boiled 
cabbage  with  a  diminutive  slice  of  bacon  in  the  centre, 
which  latter  was  offered  to  and  declined  by  all. * 

On  March  29,  1863,  Stephens  wrote :  "Our  coun 
try  is  in  a  sad  condition.  It  is  painful  to  me  to  look 
toward  the  future.  I  shrink  from  it  as  from  a  fright 
ful  gulf  toward  which  we  are  rapidly  tending.  This 
is  a  general  fast  day,  dedicated  to  humiliation  and 
prayer — most  appropriate  duties."  A  little  later  on 
he  might  well  have  written  that  for  too  many  citizens, 
as  well  as  soldiers,  every  day  had  virtually  become  a 
fast  day  ! 

In  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  written  by 
Stephens  describing  his  unsuccessful  attempt  to  reach 
Eichmond  from  his  home  in  Georgia  in  the  spring  of 
1864,  we  get  an  interesting  glimpse  of  war-time  in  the 
Confederacy  and  some  of  the  attendant  hardships  : 

"  A  train  is  brought  out  [at  Columbia,  S.  C.],  and 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  Yankee  prisoners  marched  out 
to  be  put  011  it.  Another  train  brought  out,  and  two 
hundred  and  fifty  more  Yankee  prisoners  marched  out 
and  put  in.  At  the  end  of  this  train  a  passenger  car 
is  attached,  all  the  others  and  all  the  cars  of  the  first 
train  being  box  cars.  My  conductor  appears  .  .  . 
takes  me  to  the  car  and  gives  me  a  good  seat.  Bag 
gage  put  on.  I  walk  out  on  the  platform  before  the 
car  leaves.  A  great  number  of  wounded  soldiers  stand 
ing  about  trying  to  get  passage  home ;  some  with 
1  Henry  A.  White,  Life  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  pp.  516-519. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  263 

bandages  on  the  head,  some  with  arms  in  slings  and 
some  on  crutches.  In  reply  to  their  questions  the  con 
ductor  says  they  cannot  go, — they  mast  wait  until  to 
morrow.  Great  murmuring  in  the  crowd  :  '  They  had 
been  there  two  days  waiting  and  without  money. '- 
1  No  more  care  or  thought  is  given  to  a  wounded  soldier 
than  if  he  were  a  dog, '  — such  exclamations  were  com 
mon.  ...  I  take  my  seat  in  the  car, — the  man 
with  a  gun  at  the  door  lets  me  in.  On  this  quite  a 
number  of  the  wounded  soldiers  get  in  at  the  windows. 
Conductor  comes  and  makes  them  get  out — they  com 
plain  bitterly.  Some  one  tells  them,  I  suppose,  that  I 
was  the  Vice- President,  for  I  hear  some  vociferous  fel 
low  say  aloud,  in  a  passion,  i  I'll  be  damned  if  I  don't 
go  ;  I  am  as  good  as  the  Vice- President !'...! 
had  gone  to  see  Major  Morphet,  who  had  come  down 
in  charge  of  the  prisoners,  and  urged  upon  him  to  send 
the  wounded  soldiers  forward  as  soon  as  possible. 
Among  the  loudest  complaints  they  were  making  was 
one  that  the  Yankees  should  be  sent  on  before  them. 
Some  of  them  swore  in  their  wrath  that  the  Yankees 
ought  to  be  killed  ;  but  instead  of  that  they  were  cared 
for  more  than  the  men  who  had  been  wounded  in  de 
fending  their  country.  I  was  truly  sorry  for  them. 
.  .  .  It  was  three  o'clock  when  we  got  to  Greens 
boro  [next  morning].  The  water  on  the  road  had 
given  out,  and  the  hands  had  to  haul  it  up  with  buck 
ets  at  the  creeks  and  branches.  .  .  .  Soon  after 
starting,  a  soldier  looking  very  weak  and  sick,  and 
much  emaciated,  passed  by  me,  looking  for  a  seat. 
The  conductor  had  given  me  a  seat  to  myself,  so  I 
touched  the  soldier  and  told  him  to  take  a  seat  by  me. 
He  did  so  with  a  good  deal  of  modesty  as  well  as  thank 
fulness.  He  evidently,  from  his  manner,  knew  who  I 
was.  He  seemed  to  be  sick  and  not  wounded  .  .  . 
and  was  a  mere  boy.  '  What  regiment  ? '  i  The  Fif 
teenth  Georgia.  ...  I  was  taken  sick  .  .  . 
have  been  here  three  days  trying  to  get  on,  but 
couldn't.'  The  poor  fellow  looked  very  badly.  On 
my  asking  him  if  he  had  any  money,  he  said  he  had 


264  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

not  a  cent.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  had  anything  to  eat 
that  day.  Nothing  since  breakfast.  I  hauled  out  my 
basket  and  gave  him  as  much  as  he  wanted.  Seeing 
others  about  looking  anxiously  on,  I  passed  the  basket 
round, — about  half  a  dozen  ate  up  what  was  laid  in  for 
our  traveling  lunch  for  some  days.  I  was  sorry  I  did 
not  have  enough  for  all." 

The  Confederate  government  was  seriously  em 
barrassed  by  its  great  accumulation  of  Federal  cap 
tives,  who  necessarily  shared  in  the  common  privations. 
With  calomel  at  $20  and  quinine  at  $100  an  ounce,  and 
the  cost  of  other  medicines  to  correspond,  and  with 
flour  at  $70  a  barrel  when  the  war  was  only  half  over, 
the  best  care  of  Federal  prisoners  in  all  cases  would 
seem  to  have  been  impossible.  Yet  the  mortality  ap 
pears  to  have  been  greater  in  Northern  than  in  South 
ern  prisons.  Secretary  Stanton's  report  of  July  19, 
1866,  as  now  found  in  the  House  Executive  Documents, 
states  that  22,576  Union  prisoners  died  in  the  South  and 
26,436  Confederate  prisoners  in  the  North,  while  the 
total  of  Confederate  captives  is  given  as  220,000  and  of 
Federal  as  "  about  126,940."  Stephens  and  Davis  in 
their  histories,  and  Hill  in  Congress,  cited  a  subsequent 
report  of  Surgeon-General  Barnes,  estimating  the  whole 
number  of  prisoners  in  the  South  as  270,000.  This 
Barnes  report,  though  apparently  not  now  in 
cluded  in  the  government's  printed  documents,  is 
referred  to  by  the  National  Intelligencer  of  June  2, 
1869,  in  an  editorial  statement  giving  exactly  the 
same  figures,  as  having  appeared  "  year  before  last " 
(1867).  The  policy  of  non-exchange  persisted  in 
by  the  Federal  government,  in  spite  of  all  the 
representations  and  propositions  from  the  Confed- 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR   265 

erate,  kept  the  prisons  on  both  sides  overcrowded 
and  undoubtedly  was  the  cause  of  much  of  the  suffering 
and  mortality. 

Stephens  was  so  moved  by  the  spectacle  of  the  hard 
ships  and  needs  of  the  great  accumulations  of  prison 
ers  in  the  South  that  in  1864  he  urged  that  they  be  ex 
tended  an  unconditional  discharge  and  sent  home,  sup 
porting  his  suggestion  by  the  argument  that  such  an 
unexampled  act  of  generosity  would  strengthen  the 
anti- war  party  in  the  North.  ' l  These  very  unfortunate 
suffering  prisoners,"  reads  Stephens7  s  argument — "suf 
fering  from  the  inhumanity  of  their  own  high  officials, 
who  had  beguiled  them  by  false  pretexts  into  this  cru 
sade  against  unoffending  neighbors — so  relieved  and 
sent  home  to  the  bosom  of  their  families  and  friends  by 
such  an  act  of  mercy  on  our  part,  I  thought  would  be 
the  most  effective  of  instruments  at  our  command  for 
accomplishing  this  great  end."  '  The  answer  to  his 
remarkable  proposal  was  that  "  if  the  Federal  prison 
ers  should  be  thus  discharged,  there  would  be  no  se 
curity  for  the  safety  of  the  equally  suffering  Confeder 
ates  in  Northern  prisons,"  who  "might  be  tried  and 
executed  for  treason,  as  the  privateersmen  had  been 
tried  and  condemned  to  death  for  piracy,"  and  "had 
been  saved  only  by  the  retaliatory  course  to  which  the 
Confederates  had  been  compelled  to  resort."  The 
policy  of  non-exchange,  though  apparently  cruel,  was 
no  doubt  justified  at  Washington  on  the  ground  that 
it  would  cause  the  sacrifice  of  fewer  Northern  lives  in 
the  end.  It  steadily  weakened  the  Confederate  armies, 
which  found  it  increasingly  difficult  and  finally  impos 
sible  to  renew  their  losses,  while  the  unfailing  sources 
1  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  II,  pp.  516-519. 


266  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

of  supply  on  the  Federal  side  caused  such  losses  to  be 
of  comparatively  small  account.  The  Federal  govern 
ment  could  well  afford  to  sacrifice  the  aid  of  the  vast 
number  of  prisoners  held  in  the  South  in  exchange  for 
the  privilege  of  keeping  220,000  Confederates  away 
from  the  firing  line. 

In  the  midst  of  the  distresses  and  perplexities  over 
whelming  the  Confederacy,  its  inexperienced  govern 
ment  made  mistakes  that  in  some  cases  rendered  the  sit 
uation  still  more  desperate.  Why  reflecting  men  should 
have  enacted  a  law  exempting  large  slaveholders, 
or  those  owning  twenty  negroes  or  more,  from  military 
service,  passes  understanding.  Its  prompt  and  easily 
foreseen  result  was  to  excite  class  feeling  and  bring  for 
ward  the  demoralizing  and  not  in  all  respects  unrea 
soning  complaint  that  it  was  "  a  rich  man's  war  and  a 
poor  man' s  fight. ' '  There  were  less  than  400, 000  slave 
holders  in  the  entire  South,  and  just  enough  truth  in 
the  charge  to  render  such  an  issue  seriously  damaging 
to  the  Confederacy's  cause.  The  feeling  thus  aroused 
was  no  doubt  fruitful  of  desertions  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  war,  encouraging  a  certain  half-heartedness 
that  obtained  among  many  of  the  poorer  whites  from 
the  outset  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  shared  in  the 
universal  dread  of  the  consequences  of  emancipation. 
These  Southern  people  of  the  lowly  class  in  which 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  born,  though  as  a  rule  very 
ignorant,  were  at  least  dimly  conscious  that  slave  labor 
was  practically  an  insurmountable  obstacle  in  the  path 
of  their  own  advancement.  The  deserters  and  those 
who  fled  from  the  conscript  officers  to  the  swamps  and 
mountains  were  largely  from  this  class.  It  was  charged 
that  even  the  rich  who  were  not  exempt  were  bribing 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  267 

the  conscript  officers  and  buying  their  way  out 
of  the  service,  and  that  wealthy  young  men  were 
elected  magistrates  in  order  that  they  might  es 
cape.  l 

There  was  a  certain  amount  of  plausibility  in  the 
plea  that  the  large  slaveholders  were  needed  to  raise 
provisions  for  the  army,  and,  after  quelling  the  bread 
riot  in  Richmond  in  1863,  Davis  issued  a  pathetic  ap 
peal  to  them  and  all  farmers  to  abandon  cotton  and 
raise  food  only.  But  too  many  large  slaveholders  went 
on  growing  cotton  and  secreting  it  for  a  future  rainy 
day,  or  doing  still  greater  injury  to  the  Confederacy's 
cause  by  selling  it  across  the  lines  into  the  North  ;  and 
it  was  largely  these  self-seekers  and  the  heartless  food 
speculators  who  were  able  to  hold  their  own  in  the  al 
most  universal  financial  ruin  that  overwhelmed  the 
South  after  the  collapse  of  the  movement  for  independ 
ence.  The  Eichmond  Examiner  declared  that  the 
" apostate"  cotton  planters  had  " inflicted  as  heavy  a 
blow  upon  the  South  as  all  the  Yankee  armies."  2  On 
July  21,  1863,  the  Examiner  declared  that  "  those 
rampant  cotton  and  sugar  planters,  who  were  so  early 
and  furiously  in  the  field  for  secession,  and  who  after 
the  war  had  commenced  were  so  resolved  on  burning 
their  cotton  and  destroying  their  sugar,  not  only  did 
not  burn  and  destroy  in  three  cases  out  of  four,  but  a 
great  many  of  them,  having  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  Yankees,  are  now  raising  cotton  in  partnership 
with  their  Yankee  protectors  and  shipping  it  to  Yankee 
markets."  The  Examiner  very  pointedly  added  that 

1  Callahan,  Diplomatic  History  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  p.  46. 
1  Writings  of  Jno.  M.  Daniel  in  the  Richmond  "  Examiner  "  During 
the  War,  p.  100. 


268  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

i  i  the  want  of  tenacity  of  purpose  and  inflexibility  of 
patriotism  in  the  character  of  a  class  of  Southern  peo 
ple  is  painfully  conspicuous  in  these  cotton  transac 
tions.  " 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  poorer  men  who 
patriotically  sought  to  respond  to  the  appeal  of  the 
Confederacy's  sorely-tried  chief.  A  verified  instance 
may  be  mentioned  of  a  Southern  officer,  who,  although 
a  professional  man  with  comparatively  little  wealth, 
after  being  incapacitated  for  further  military  service 
by  broken  health,  actually  bought  more  negroes  and 
began  to  raise  provisions  for  the  army  at  a  time  when 
the  Confederacy  was  plainly  near  the  end  of  its  career 
and  slavery  was  doomed.  The  modern  financier  may 
not  admire  him,  but  he  was  of  the  stuff  that  real 
patriots  are  made.  Undoubtedly  the  majority  of  the 
people  in  the  South  were  united  in  the  desire  for  an 
independent  political  existence  and  were  as  willing  to 
make  enormous  sacrifices  in  order  to  secure  it  as  any 
people  who  have  ever  been  engaged  in  a  similarly 
exhausting  struggle  ;  but  lack  of  public  spirit  was  in 
evidence,  and  the  world-old  story  of  the  selfish  rich 
and  the  patriotic  poor  was  told  again  in  the  Southern 
Confederacy.  A  demand  for  the  diminution  of  the 
excepted  classes  was  inevitable,  and  the  exemption  of 
overseers  from  eighteen  to  forty-five  years  of  age 
was  repealed.  Davis  finally  recommended  the  aboli 
tion  of  all  provisions  involving  or  suggesting  class 
exemptions,  but  the  Congressional  committee,  ap 
parently  still  yielding  to  outside  influence,  in  its  reply 
to  a  second  recommendation  of  this  nature,  declared 
that  the  measures  proposed  by  Mr.  Davis  to  promote 
the  efficiency  of  the  army  had  already  been  adopted, 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  269 

'  l  except  the  entire  repeal  of  class  exemptions. ' ' l  This 
important  exception,  which  obtained  up  to  the  last 
hours,  shows  how  strong  was  the  influence  brought  to 
bear  on  the  Congress  in  favor  of  the  damaging  policy. 
But,  in  any  case,  it  was  now  too  late.  The  mischief 
was  done.  The  Confederate  government  had  resorted 
to  conscription,  to  impressment  of  food  for  the  army, 
to  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  was 
finally  driven  to  decide  on  the  policy  of  enlisting 
negro  slaves  with  the  prospect  of  their  emancipation 
in  return  for  such  military  service  ;  but  its  harassed 
and  desperate  President  was  unable  to  force  the  aboli 
tion  of  "  class  exemptions."  "  Over  100,000  landed 
proprietors  and  most  of  the  slave  owners  are  now  out  of 
the  ranks, ' '  wrote  J.  B.  Jones  in  his  Diary  on  September 
12,1864  .  .  .  "  the  result  of  the  pernicious  policy 
of  partiality. ' ' 2  This  is  the  exaggerated  statement  of  a 
man  whose  family  was  suffering  for  the  want  of  suf 
ficient  food,  but  it  nevertheless  contains  no  inconsider 
able  measure  of  truth. 

The  negroes,  because  they  were  employed  in  raising 
cotton  and  grain,  have  been  usually  reckoned  as  one 
of  the  Confederacy's  assets,  but  their  value  in  this 
respect  was  more  than  offset  by  the  damage  resulting 
from  their  presence  in  the  South  as  slaves.  As  has 
been  noted,  overseers  were  excused  from  military 
service  because  they  were  needed  to  direct,  watch  over 
and  guard  the  blacks.  Acquiescence  by  intelligent 
non-slaveholders  in  this  and  other  exemptions,  such  as 
that  of  the  owners  of  twenty  or  more  slaves,  can  be 
explained  only  on  the  ground  of  the  general  belief  that 

1  The  Richmond  Dispatch  of  March  15,  1865,  as  quoted  by  CaU»- 
ban.  2  Vol.  II,  p.  281. 


270  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

the  South' s  safety  required  able-bodied  and  determined 
white  men  at  home  as  well  as  at  the  front.  The 
negroes  in  the  mass  were  densely  ignorant,  and  it  was 
provided,  as  far  as  possible,  that  they  should  know 
little  of  what  was  taking  place  outside  of  the  com 
munities  in  which  they  lived.  They  were,  moreover, 
remarkably  docile  on  the  whole,  and  in  many  instances 
attached  by  a  childlike  affection  to  the  families  of 
their  masters  ;  but  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  the 
thinking  men  of  the  Confederacy  were  ever  free  of  the 
fear  of  servile  insurrections.  The  handicap  of  the 
negro  did  not  end  in  such  anxiety  as  this,  or  in  the 
inevitable  reduction  of  the  number  of  white  men 
available  for  military  service.  The  presence  of  the 
negroes  in  the  South  as  slaves  not  only  furnished  in 
spiration  to  a  large  element  among  those  fighting  for 
the  Union,  providing  Lincoln  rather  than  Davis  with 
an  asset  of  great  value,  but  contributed  more  largely 
than  any  other  factor  to  the  Confederacy's  failure  after 
long  and  weary  efforts  to  obtain  recognition  from  the 
governments  of  Europe. 

Both  President  Davis  and  Secretary  of  State  Benja 
min  favored  negro  enlistments  as  a  last  resort,  and  the 
former  recommended  'the  policy  in  a  message  to  Con 
gress  early  in  November,  1864.  Some  of  the  newspa 
pers  approved  it,  but  the  Eichmond  Examiner  thought 
the  proposition  could  be  supported  "only  on  the 
ground  that  good  soldiers  can  be  made  of  the  negroes," 
which,  judging  from  "the  experiments  of  Europeans 
and  the  Yankees,"  was  not  to  be  expected.  The  North 
had  raised  its  negro  army  ' '  not  as  a  military  but  as  a 
political  measure — to  have  the  cant  of  the  world  on  its 
side."  Moreover,  the  plan  was  thought  objectionable 


THE  SOUTH'S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  271 

as  the  inevitable  "  first  step  ...  to  universal 
abolition"  ;  and  "to  make  a  negro  a  soldier  and  free 
him  as  a  reward  is  to  confess  that  slavery  is  wrong."  ' 
There  was  also  strong  opposition  from  slaveholders  as 
a  matter  of  course.  But  by  the  opening  of  the  year 
1865,  the  Sentinel  and  the  Enquirer,  published  at 
Bichmond,  had  begun  the  task  of  winning  the  people 
over  to  the  policy,  the  former  declaring  that  "any 
sacrifice  of  opinion  and  sacrifice  of  property,  any 
surrender  of  prejudice,  if  necessary  to  defeat  our 
enemy,  is  now  the  watchword."  Returning  from 
Eichmond  early  in  January,  George  D.  Prentice,  of  the 
Louisville  Journal,  declared  that  200, 000  negroes  would 
soon  be  equipped  to  fight  under  promise  of  both  liberty 
and  laud.  On  February  18th,  General  Lee  wrote  that 
he  regarded  the  measure  as  not  only  expedient  but 
necessary,  inasmuch  as  the  South' s  white  population 
alone  was  insufficient  to  meet  the  necessities  of  a  long 
war.  He  added  that  he  thought  the  enlisted  negroes 
should  be  set  free,  as  it  would  be  "  neither  just  nor 
wise  to  require  them  to  serve  as  slaves."  2  "  From  all 
the  signs,"  wrote  J.  B.  Jones,  "slavery  is  doomed. 
But  if  200, 000  negro  recruits  can  be  made  to  fight,  and 
can  be  enlisted,  General  Lee  may  maintain  the  war."  s 
The  reluctant  Confederate  Congress  debated  long  in 
secret  session  and  did  not  pass  a  bill  for  arming  and 
emancipating  200,000  slaves  until  March  10th,  when 
there  was  not  sufficient  time  before  the  surrender  of 
Lee  on  April  9th  to  put  it  into  execution.  Some 

1  The  Richmond  Examiner,  November  8,  1864. 

2  Henry  A.  White,   Robert  E.  Lee  and  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
pp.  416-417. 

8  Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  Vol.  II,  p.  424. 


272  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

initial  steps  against  opposition  were  taken,  however, 
in  several  States.  ' '  The  parade  of  a  few  companies 
of  negro  troops  yesterday ' '  [in  Richmond],  reads  the 
Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  date  of  March  23,  1865,  "  was 
rather  a  ridiculous  affair.  The  owners  are  opposed  to 
it."  The  only  men  of  negro  blood  of  whom  record 
is  found,  as  fighting  for  the  Confederacy,  were  certain 
mulattoes  of  Mobile  whose  ancestors  were  made  free  by 
the  treaties  with  France  in  1803.  At  their  earnest 
request  they  were  enlisted  for  the  defense  of  Mobile  in 
1862  by  authorization  of  the  Alabama  legislature,  and 
a  year  later  they  were  received  into  the  Confederate 
service  as  heavy  artillery.1 

Meanwhile  Lincoln  had  shrewdly  employed  the  negro 
question  for  all  it  was  worth  as  a  means  of  weakening 
the  Confederacy.  His  various  proclamations  and 
public  utterances  from  1861  to  1863,  whether  declar 
ing  free  only  those  negroes  i  i  engaged  in  the  rebel 
service  "  2  (which  virtually  meant  none),  or  recom 
mending  pecuniary  aid  to  any  State  which  might 
*  *  adopt  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery, "  3  or  giving 
assurances  that  if  he  could  he  would  save  the  Union 
"  without  freeing  any  slave,"  4  were  so  timed  and  ex 
pressed  that  all  factions,  including  slaveholding 
Unionists  in  the  South  and  the  border  States,  were 
kept  hopeful.  In  September,  1862,  it  was  made  plain 
that  the  seceded  States  could  preserve  slavery  within 
their  limits  only  by  winning  the  war,  or  secure  com 
pensation  for  their  slave  property  only  by  abandoning 

1  Fleming,  Civil  War  and  Reconstruction  in  Alabama,  p.  86. 
J  J.  G.  Holland,  Life  of  Lincoln,  Chap.  20. 
'Horace  Greeley,  The  American  Conflict,  Vol.  II,  Chap.  12. 
4  Lincoln's  Complete  Works,  Vol.  II,  pp.  227-8. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  273 

their  allies  and  seeking  a  separate  peace — an  offer  add 
ing  greatly  to  the  burden  under  which  the  Confederate 
government  staggered  at  a  time  when  the  privations  of 
the  soldiers  and  people  had  already  become  severe,  and 
the  favorable  issue  of  the  conflict  had  begun  to  admit 
of  grave  doubt  among  thinking  men.  Even  the  final 
proclamation  of  January,  1863,  freed  the  negroes  only 
in  the  States  "  in  rebellion "  and  left  them  slaves  in 
the  "  loyal "  sections  of  Southern  and  the  border  States, 
causing  the  London  Times  to  see  in  the  purpose  of  the 
pronouncement  nothing  better  than  l  i  the  execrable  ex 
pedient  of  a  servile  insurrection."  But  when  Lincoln 
finally  secured  the  ratification  of  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  admitting  the  "mining  camp"  of 
Nevada  into  the  Union  as  a  State  and  not  scrupling  to 
buy  a  few  votes  in  order  to  compass  that  end,  it  being 
"a  question  of  three  votes  or  new  armies,"  '  he  no 
doubt  achieved  his  long-desired  but  unavowed  object. 
Among  those  prominently  connected  with  the  Con 
federate  government,  perhaps  the  only  man  capable  of 
a  course  along  similar  large,  bold  and  revolutionary 
lines  was  Eobert  Toornbs,  whose  quality  was  revealed 
when,  in  addressing  the  Georgia  legislature  before  that 
State  had  seceded,  he  recklessly  declared  :  /"  I  ask 
you  to  give  me  the  sword,  for  if  you  do  not  give  it  to 
me,  as  God  lives,  I  will  take  it  myselEy  Toombs  was 
the  qualified  leader,  had  he  been  in  supreme  com 
mand,  to  have  ordered  a  prompt  march  upon  Wash 
ington  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Eun,  and  to  have 
gathered  promptly  all  the  possible  fruits  of  its  cap 
ture.  But  Davis,  true  to  the  theory  that  the  Confed 
eracy  merely  wished  to  defend  the  right  of  secession 
1  Oberholtzer,  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  306. 


274  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

and  repel  the  invader,  that  there  was  neither  the  right 
nor  the  desire  to  attack  the  " sister  States"  which 
chose  to  remain  with  the  old  Union^  opposed  any  snch 
aggressive  action,  and  thus  was  lost  what  was  perhaps 
the  Confederacy's  only  opportunity  of  success  ever 
within  its  grasp.  A  sincere,  high-minded  man,  no  less  a 
patriot  and  less  of  a  revolutionist  than  Lincoln,  more 
scrupulous  as  to  means  and  methods,  Davis  was  disquali 
fied  for  his  position,  as  well  by  his  admirable  personal 
virtues  as  by  his  lack  of  the  needed  Napoleonic  spirit 
and  devotion  to  the  theory  of  the  most  successful 
leaders  in  all  ages  that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 
The  odium  visited  upon  the  head  of  the  chosen  leader, 
the  burden  bearer,  of  a  lost  and  discredited  cause  has 
inevitably  prevented  a  recognition  of  his  superior 
qualities  as  a  man  as  well  as  of  the  purity  of  his 
motives  as  a  statesman.  The  one  leader,  barring  the 
most  popular  commanders  in  the  field,  who  retained  the 
admiration  and  affection  of  the  Southern  masses  to  the 
last — because  of  his  consistent  devotion  to  his  prin 
ciples  throughout  the  struggle  and  his  manly  fortitude 
and  dignity  under  misfortune  afterward — Jefferson 
Davis  was  not  enough  of  a  revolutionist  to  be  able  to 
grapple  successfully  with  the  overwhelming  difficulties 
confronting  him  as  President  of  the  ill-fated  Southern 
Confederacy.  His  regard  for  the  constitutional  limita 
tions  that  were  supposed  to  hedge  him  round  was  such 
as  no  revolutionary  leader  could  afford  to  cherish. 
Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  acted  on  the  theory,  and 
the  only  one  possible  with  success  in  view,  that  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  temporarily 
suspended,  and  that  a  war  President,  confronted  with 
such  unusual  conditions,  must  be  virtually  a  dictator, 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  275 

providing   for  extra- constitutional  acts  and  decisions 
at  will,  and  without  the  delays  and  hazards  of  debate. 

As  a  revolutionary  leader,  Stephens  was  more  unfit 
in  this  respect  than  Davis,  his  fear  of  extra- constitu 
tional  acts  and  invasions  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
the  people,  even  in  the  hours  of  a  supreme  crisis  when 
there  was  room  for  desperate  measures  or  none, 
amounted  almost  to  a  monomania.  This  tendency,  as 
will  be  shown,  led  him  to  such  extremes  that,  al 
though  his  motives  were  those  of  a  sincere  lover  of  pop 
ular  liberty,  he  by  his  open  criticism  of  and  resistance 
to  the  adopted  policies  of  the  Confederate  government 
and  predictions  of  evil  to  come,  without  knowing  or 
intending  it,  rendered  aid  to  the  enemies  of  the  cause 
he  represented.  It  was  from  these  misguided  protests 
of  Stephens  that  the  North  not  unreasonably  derived 
the  erroneous  impression  that  Davis  was  an  autocrat 
by  nature  and  a  dictator  in  fact.  It  would  have  been 
better  for  the  Confederacy,  so  far  as  prospects  of  suc 
cess  were  concerned,  if  its  President  had  been  more  of  a 
dictator,  if  he  had  dared  to  ignore  altogether  the 
protests  of  the  Yice-President  and  retire  their  author 
to  private  life. 

Stephens  was  less  and  less  consulted  by  his  chief  as\ 
the  war  progressed,  but  his  criticisms  were  effective  in  V 
causing  a  more  timid  policy  on  the  part  of  the  Con 
federate  government  than  otherwise  would  have  ob 
tained.     Fear  of  consequences  alone  prevented  an  open 
rupture,    Stephens' s    influence  with  the  people,    es 
pecially  in  the  powerful  State  of  Georgia,  being  too 
great  to  be  lightly  dismissed.     And  here  we  find  one 
of  the  important  factors  contributing  to  the  failure  of 
the  South  in  the  war.     The  single  Southern  States 


276  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

were  strong,  but  the  Confederacy  itself  was  weak. 
The  conditions  were  altogether  similar  to  those  during 
the  struggle  of  the  loosely -connected  Colonies  against 
Great  Britain.  The  Confederate  government,  knowing 
that  it  could  ill  afford  to  antagonize  influential  Stale 
leaders  and  the  powerful  sovereign  States  they  repre 
sented,  dared  not  act  more  fully  on  the  advice  of  those 
who  answered  Stephens  with  the  pointed  argument 
that  independence  was  the  immediate  and  should  be 
the  all-absorbing  object,  and  that  civil  liberty  might 
receive  due  attention  afterward.  That  there  should 
have  been  this  difference  between  the  Washington  and 
Eichmond  governments  from  the  outset  was  an  inevi 
table  consequence  of  the  fact  that  Southern  statesmen, 
comparatively  speaking,  had  always  been  opposed  to 
a  strong  central  government,  and  the  habits  of  thought 
acquired  during  a  lifetime  were  not  to  be  changed  in  a 
moment. 

Davis  spoke  from  the  accepted,  consistent,  but  dis 
astrous  defensive  policy — urged  by  Stephens  from  the 
beginning — when,  in  his  letter  to  Pope  Pius  IX,  Sep 
tember  23,  1863,  he  said  :  "  We  desire  no  evil  to  our 
enemies,  nor  do  we  covet  any  of  their  possessions ; 
but  are  only  struggling  to  the  end  that  they  shall  cease 
to  devastate  our  land  .  .  .  and  that  we  be  per 
mitted  to  live  at  peace  with  all  mankind,  under  our 
own  laws  and  institutions."  '  The  defensive  policy  was 
only  in  a  measure  modified  by  the  marching  of  Lee's 
army  across  the  Pennsylvania  boundary  line.  Even 
after  the  battles  about  Gettysburg,  the  Eichmond  Ex 
aminer  complained  that  it  was  still  in  force  and  scoffed 
at  the  "milk  and  water  spirit"  which  it  involved. 
1  From  manuscript  letter  in  the  Congressional  Library. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR  277 

"In  the  outset  of  the  conflict, "  said  the  Examiner, 
1  i  when  we  could  have  invaded  the  North,  we  stood  on 
the  defensive  from  a  desire  felt  by  our  government 
not  to  excite  a  war  feeling  in  our  enemies ;  and  lately 
in  carrying  invasion  to  their  own  doors,  we  purchased 
our  supplies  at  fair  prices,  in  the  hope,  by  thus  heap 
ing  coals  of  fire  on  their  heads,  to  excite  some  con 
trition  for  the  barbarities  they  have  committed  in  our 
own  confines,  and  dispose  them  to  peace.  The  strange 
and  fierce  contrast  to  this  amiable  Southern  feeling 
which  the  Northern  government  has  exhibited  in  its 
conduct  of  the  war,  presents  a  subject  of  serious  reflec 
tion.  .  .  .  Peaceful  sentiments  and  overtures  on 
our  side  are  worse  than  vain  ;  and  they  only  imply  a 
trifling  imbecility  in  our  councils. ' '  * 

Some  days  earlier,  on  July  11,  1863,  while  Lee  was 
still  on  Pennsylvania  soil,  discussing  that  general's 
orders  "  forbidding  pillage  and  marauders, "  the  Ex 
aminer  urgently  called  for  l l  retaliatory  punishment  on 
the  nation  that  has  desolated  the  Southern  country," 
bitterly  complained  of  a  policy  which  "  gives  the 
Yankee  the  same  protection  as  our  own  people,"  and 
contemptuously  informed  the  government  at  Eichmond 
that  "  there  are  few  persons  in  this  Confederacy  who 
boast  the  philosophy  of  milksops  in  war,  and  would 
have  our  armies  enact  the  part  of  Uncle  Toby  and  the 
fly." 

Some  disposition  to  abandon  the  defensive  policy 
developed  only  when  the  golden  opportunity  had  fled. 
So  likewise  only  the  logic  of  events  and  the  spur  of 
dire  necessity  finally  drove  Davis  farther  from  consti 
tutionalism  and  nearer  to  dictatorship,  inevitable  exi- 

1  The  Richmond  Examiner,  July  28,  1863. 


278  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

gencies  in  the  stupendous  conflict  tending  to  give  the 
executive  will  the  force  of  law.  Thus  it  came  to  pass 
that  criticism  from,  the  other  leaders  rained  upon  him 
more  heavily  than  before,  and  even  the  people  to  some 
extent  turned  and  accused  him,  restoring  to  him  their 
complete  respect  and  lasting  affection  only  after  the 
dread  collapse  when,  with  feelings  of  inexpressible 
outrage,  they  saw  him  martyred  in  the  irons  Of  a  com 
mon  malefactor. 

The  last  year  of  the  Confederacy  was  a  fitting  prepa 
ration  for  its  tragic  downfall.  A  hopeless  achievement 
had  been  undertaken  and  its  hopelessness  was  more 
widely  understood  than  acknowledged.  Despair  per 
vaded  the  intellectual  atmosphere,  and  there  developed 
the  inevitable  tendency  in  each  man  to  accuse  his 
neighbor.  Confederate  and  State  authority  clashed, 
and  it  was  feared  that  some  of  the  complaining  States 
might  make  a  separate  peace  with  the  common  enemy. 
The  Vice-President  accused  the  President,  Congress 
defied  the  Executive,  and  the  latter,  in  the  midst  of 
crowding  difficulties  such  as  few  mortals  have  ever 
been  called  upon  to  face,  struggled  on  in  the  service  of 
a  cause  visibly  tottering  to  its  fall,  his  every  act 
branded  in  some  quarter  as  a  mistake  for  the  simple 
reason,  if  for  no  other,  that  no  movement  of  the  Con 
federate  government  could  now  be  crowned  with  suc 
cess  without  supernatural  interference  and  the  employ 
ment  of  miracles.  The  people  who  suffered  for  the 
want  of  food  and  medicines  had  a  natural  right  to 
complain  of  their  leaders,  and  ask  for  the  hastening 
of  the  inevitable  end,  but  it  ill  became  secessionist 
newspapers,  as  fully  responsible  as  any  of  the  leaders, 
to  turn  upon  the  government  and  upon  Davis. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR  279 

The  disposition  to  accuse  the  Confederacy's  chief 
because  of  accumulating  disasters,  which  no  man  or 
men  could  have  stayed  under  the  same  conditions,  was 
stimulated  by  such  journals  as  the  Richmond  Examiner, 
which  began  with  the  abuse  of  Lincoln  and  ended 
with  the  emptying  of  its  vials  on  Davis,  and  the 
Charleston  Mercury ,  which  had  been  Calhoun's  organ 
in  the  forties,  had  boomed  secession  in  1850-1,  and 
again  in  1860.  The  Macon  Telegraph,  which  was 
secessionist  as  far  back  as  1850,  in  the  spring  of  1865, 
bitterly  complained  of  the  "  ultraists  of  both  sections," 
the  "men  who  were  governed  alone  by  an  insatiate 
and  restless  ambition,"  who  "were  satisfied  only  to 
rule  or  ruin"— these  were  the  "guilty  parties,"  the 
"instigators  of  this  war,"  and  were  responsible  for  the 
woes  of  the  South.  There  were  Southern  editors,  how 
ever,  who,  apprehensive  of  results,  refused  to  report 
WigfalPs  bitter  and  vindictive  speeches  against  Davis. 

Long  before  the  last  terrible  months  when  the  ex 
hausted  and  starving  Confederacy  was  gasping  for  its 
breath,  its  representatives  were  greatly  embarrassed 
by  the  threatening  opposition  of  some  jf  the  State 
governments  as  well  as  by  the  controversies  between 
the  highest  officials.  Secession  from  the  Confederacy 
seemed  to  be  impending.  Governor  Yance  of  North 
Carolina  uttered  threats,  and  the  attitude  of  Stephens, 
Toombs,  and  Governor  Brown  caused  the  fear  that 
Georgia  was  in  danger  of  making  a  separate  peace. 
In  the  hour  of  the  darkest  temptation  all  the  States 
remained  true,  as  when  Governor  Brown  sent  his 
thrilling  reply  to  Sherman's  overtures  ;  but  Davis  had 
previously  found  it  necessary  to  go  South  and  deliver 
speeches  in  defense  of  the  government  he  represented. 


280  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

The  tottering  Confederacy  was  not  only  fighting  against 
incalculable  odds  in  men  and  resources,  not  only  suf 
focated  by  the  blockade  and  weakened  by  the  pangs  of 
hunger,  but  was  distracted  by  divided  counsels  and 
embarrassed  by  internal  dissensions.  What  it  accom 
plished  in  spite  of  all  is  a  marvel  of  history. 

The  best  that  was  in  the  South  of  1861-5  was  not 
represented  by  its  soulless  speculators,  its  exempted 
slaveholders,  its  self-seeking  cotton  planters,  its  in 
criminating  newspapers,  or  its  contending  statesmen, 
but  by  its  inconspicuous  people  who  remained  true 
in  the  midst  of  cruel  privations,  by  its  soldiers  who 
stood  on  the  firing  line  with  empty  stomachs  and  did 
not  flinch,  and  by  its  women  who  gave  their  jewels1 
and  the  labor  of  their  hands  to  feed  and  clothe  the 
men  in  gray.  Lord  Wolseley,  former  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  British  army,  ranked  Lee  with  Marl- 
borough  and  Wellington  and  described  him  as  the 
greatest  military  hero  of  modern  times.  Theodore 
Eoosevelt  has  expressed  the  belief  that  "the  world 
will  never  see  better  soldiers  than  followed  Lee,  and 
their  leader  will  undoubtedly  rank  without  any  ex 
ception  as  the  very  greatest  of  all  the  great  captains 
that  the  English  speaking  people  have  brought  forth."  a 
But  the  supreme  tribute  to  the  genius  of  Confederate 
captains  and  to  the  valor  of  their  followers  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Federal  pension  roll  which  forty  years 
after  the  great  conflict  contained  nearly  twice  as  many 
names  of  wounded  veterans  as  the  Confederates  had  in 
the  field  during  the  entire  four  years  of  war.  The 
Southern  States  have  contributed  through  taxation  in 

1  Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  Yol.  II,  p.  453. 

2  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Life  of  Benton,  p.  38. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR  281 

various  forms,  and  without  any  return,  about  one- 
third,  or  $50,000,000  a  year,  to  keep  alive  this  monu 
ment  to  Confederate  valor.  Few  direct  war  indemnities 
have  been  as  heavy  ;  fewer  still  have  been  a  similar 
source  of  pride. 

The  women  of  the  South  were  not  one  of  the  Con 
federacy's  handicaps.  Their  tireless  hands  and  those 
of  the  slaves  they  directed  went  far  toward  supplying 
the  lack  of  cotton  and  woolen  mills,  saving  in  no 
small  measure  both  the  army  and  the  population  from 
the  rags  and  tatters  that  threatened  them.  They  con 
trived  to  dress  their  daughters  in  "  a  kind  of  gray 
poplin  "  woven  from  cotton  mixed  with  old  black  silk 
that  had  been  raveled  into  lint,  yet  the  time  came  at 
last  when  it  was  necessary  to  pay  $25  for  a  single  spool 
of  cotton  thread.1  J.  B.  Jones  no  ted,  August  14,  1863, 
that  "  every  where  the  ladies  and  children  " — includ 
ing  "Mrs.  Davis  and  the  ladies  of  her  household"— 
"may  be  seen  plaiting  straw  and  making  bonnets 
and  hats."  3  Delicate  women,  reared  in  luxury,  were 
hardened  to  the  sight  of  blood  and  nursed  wounded 
soldiers  day  and  night,  with  coffee  of  parched  potatoes 
and  tea  of  strawberry  leaves  as  their  only  stimulants.5 
"  No  house  had  an  idler,"  wrote  Dr.  Curry.  "Hands 
of  the  aged  and  of  children  were  busy  in  the  field,  in 
the  garden,  in  the  kitchen,  at  the  spinning  wheel  and 
the  loom,  and  all  were  helping  in  works  of  charity  and 
of  patriotism"  ;  women  of  the  highest  class  were  en 
gaged  in  "the  management  of  households  and  planta- 

1  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  "  Our  Women  in  War  "  edition, 
January  17,  1905. 

2  Diary,  Vol.  II,  p.  16. 

8  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  January  17,  1905. 


282  ALEXATOEB  H.  STEPHENS 

tions  and  servants,  leaving  the  men  free  for  war  and 
civil  government."  l 

But  more  than  all  else  were  these  resolute  and  un 
tiring  women  a  tower  of  strength  in  their  sustained 
enthusiasm.  They  rewarded  the  brave,  punished  the 
craven,  and  fanned  the  flame  of  patriotism,  regardless 
that  the  land  was  made  full  of  widows  and  maidens 
bereft  of  their  lovers.  They  suffered  and  feared  more 
than  the  men  in  battle  and  did  not  ask  for  peace. 
They  knew  the  terrible  risks  incurred  in  an  invaded 
country,2  yet  war  to  the  end  was  their  desire.  It  was 
God's  mercy  to  them  that  the  sleeping  tiger  was  not 
yet  aroused  in  the  submissive  alien  from  Africa.  The 
"Women  in  War"  editions  of  Southern  newspapers 
have  overflowed  with  accounts  of  their  bravery,  quick 
ness  of  wit,  and  invincible  determination.  A  youug 
Confederate  officer,  recovered  from  his  wound  and 
about  to  return  to  the  front,  was  saved  from  a  search 
ing  party  of  Federals  by  a  Tennessee  girl,  who,  "  with 
out  waiting  for  his  decision,  pushed  him  back  into  an 
adjoining  room  where  there  was  a  piano  and  bade  him 
crouch  by  the  piano  stool,  upon  which  she  promptly 
sat,  literally  extinguishing  him  with  her  balloon- 
like  crinoline  skirt."  Not  being  required  to  change 
her  position  until  the  room  had  been  searched,  the 
desperate  measure  succeeded.  The  only  reward  she 
claimed  for  thus  saving  a  soldier  for  the  Confederacy 
was  that  soldier's  silence.3  "  We  mean  to  destroy  all 

1 J.  L.  M.  Curry,  Civil  History  of  the  Confederate  States,  pp.  169- 
171. 

2  On  the  approach  of  the  invaders  all  citizens  who  could  afford  to 
do  so  sent  their  families  to  distant  points.  Unexposed  sections  of 
the  South  were  full  of  such  homeless  "  refugees  "  during  the  en 
tire  war.  3  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  January  17,  1905. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR  283 

your  food,"  l  said  certain  young  Federals  to  several 
Carolina  girls  who  treated  them  with  scorn  even  in 
sight  of  burned  and  looted  Columbia.  ' '  Yery  well ; 
we  will  live  on  acorns,"  was  the  answer.  "But  we 
will  kill  all  your  men,  and  what  will  become  of  you 
then?"  "  Then  we  will  die — or  form  an  army  of 
women" — a  reply  that  brought  into  the  faces  of  the 
foe  "mingled  expressions  of  scorn,  tenderness  and 
humor."  The  girl  writer  of  the  diary  adds  that  the 
Federal  officers  with  whom  she  and  her  friends  were 
engaged  in  this  passage  at  arms  i  i  received  the  most 
nauseous  doses  of  truth  gilded  with  smiles."  "We 
knew  that  our  churches,  the  graves  of  our  dead,  our 
beloved  homes,  our  future,  were  in  the  hands  of  our 
enemies,  but  we  were  determined  that  they  should  see 
no  sign  of  regret  or  faltering."  The  women  of  the 
Confederacy  were  invincible.  To  a  lady  whose  con 
duct  had  excited  his  admiration,  one  of  Sherman's 
officers  said:  "Madam,  the  men  of  the  South  are 
brave,  but  the  women  are  heroic." 

To  the  brief  outline  given  in  this  chapter  of  the  pri 
vations  endured  by  the  people  of  the  South  must  be 
added  some  mention  of  the  damage  done  by  the  in 
vading  armies  aside  from  the  costs  of  battle.  In  1864, 
although  he  announced  that  the  Confederates  had  in 
their  ranks  "their  last  man,"  having  "robbed  the 
cradle  and  the  grave  equally  to  get  their  present  force," 
Grant  urged  that  the  Union  troops  "eat  out  Yirginia 
clear  and  clean  so  that  crows  flying  over  it  would  have 
to  carry  their  provender  with  them. ' J  How  this  policy 
was  carried  out  may  be  gathered  from  Sheridan's  re 
port  to  Grant  from  Woodstock,  Va.,  October  7,  1864, 
1  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  January  17,  1905. 


284  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

as  follows  :  "In  moving  back  to  this  point,  the  whole 
country  from  the  Blue  Eidge  to  the  North  Mountains 
has  been  made  untenable  for  a  rebel  army.  I  have 
destroyed  over  2,000  barns  filled  with  wheat,  hay  and 
farming  implements  ;  over  seventy  mills  filled  with  flour 
and  wheat  j  have  driven  in  front  of  the  army  over 
4,000  head  of  stock,  and  have  killed  and  issued  to  the 
troops  not  less  than  3,000  sheep.  A  large  number  of 
horses  have  been  obtained,  a  proper  estimate  of  which 
I  cannot  now  make.  Lieut.  John  E.  Meigs,  my  engi 
neer  officer,  was  murdered  beyond  Harrisonburg,  near 
Dayton.  For  this  atrocious  act  all  the  houses  within  an 
area  of  five  miles  were  burned."  l 

Sherman's  policy  in  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  was 
the  same.  In  his  report  to  Major-General  Halleck 
from  Savannah,  January  1,  1865,  describing  his  seizure 
and  destruction  of  property  on  the  march  from  Atlanta, 
he  said  he  had  carried  away  "more  than  10,000  horses 
and  mules  as  well  as  a  countless  number  of  slaves," 
and  added,  "I  estimate  the  damages  done  to  the 
State  of  Georgia  and  its  military  resources  at  $100, 000,- 
000,  at  least  $20,000,000  of  which  has  inured  to  our  ad 
vantage,  and  the  remainder  is  simple  waste  and  de 
struction."  2  Writing  to  Major-General  Terry  from 
Payetteville,  N.  C.,  March  12,  1865,  Sherman  said : 
"We  have  swept  the  country  well  from  Savannah 
here.  .  .  .  The  people  of  South  Carolina,  instead 
of  feeding  Lee's  army,  will  now  call  on  Lee  to  feed 
them."3  Sherman  to  Grant,  December  16,  1864:  "I 

1  Official    Rebellion    Records,   Series  I,  Vol.  XL VII,  Part  II,  pp. 
307-308. 

2  Official  Rebellion  Records,  Series  I,  Vol.  XLIV,  p.  13. 
8 Ibid.,  Vol.  XLVII,  p.  803. 


THE  SOUTH'S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAR  285 

have  no  doubt  the  State  of  Georgia  has  lost  by  our  op 
erations  15,000  first-rate  mules.  .  .  .  Great  num 
bers  of  horses  were  shot  by  my  orders."  l  Sherman  to 
Halleck :  "We  must  make  old  and  young,  rich  and 
poor,  feel  the  hard  hand  of  war. ' ' 2  Sherman  disclaimed 
responsibility  for  the  burning  of  Columbia,  but  that  he 
expected  it  is  clear  from  his  letter  to  General  Halleck, 
December  24,  1864,  in  which  he  said  :  "I  doubt  if  we 
shall  spare  the  buildings  there  as  we  did  at  Milledge- 
ville  [the  old  capital  of  Georgia].  .  .  .  The  whole 
army  is  burning  with  an  insatiable  desire  to  wreak 
vengeance  on  South  Carolina.  I  almost  tremble  at  her 
fate,  but  feel  that  she  deserves  all  that  is  in  store  for 
her."  3  This  is  sufficient  confirmation  of  the  belief  of 
a  Northern  soldier  that  Columbia  was  "  deliberately  set 
on  fire  in  more  than  a  hundred  places."  *  Southern 
eye-witnesses  have  repeatedly  testified  to  the  firing  of 
the  city  by  Union  soldiers,  and  also  that  country  dwell 
ing-houses  all  along  Sherman's  route  were  reduced  to 
ashes.  A  startling  account  of  the  scenes  at  Columbia, 
written  by  William  Gilmore  Simms,  appears  in  Ap 
pendix  M,  Vol.  II,  of  Stephens' s  Constitutional  View 
of  the  War,  but  there  is  sufficient  testimony  in  the  gov 
ernment's  own  Records,  wherein  the  discreet  excisions 
marked  by  asterisks  are  sometimes  more  eloquent  than 
the  actual  statements. 

Discussing  "  the  most  monstrous  barbarity  of  the 
barbarous  march" — the  burning  of  Columbia — and 
Sherman's  devastation  of  South  Carolina  generally, 

1  Official  Rebellion  Records,  Series  I,  Vol.  XLIV,  pp.  726-7. 

8  Ibid.,  Vol.  XLIV,  p.  799. 

3 Ibid.,  Vol.  XLIV,  p.  799: 

4  W.  B.  Hazen,  Narrative  of  Military  Service,  Chaps.  23-25. 


286  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Mr.  Whitelaw  Eeid  has  said  :  i '  The  last  morsel  of  food 
was  taken  from  hundreds  of  destitute  families  that  his 
soldiers  might  feast  in  needless  and  riotous  abundance. 
Before  his  eyes  rose,  day  after  day,  the  mournful 
clouds  of  smoke  on  every  hand,  that  told  of  old  people 
and  their  grandchildren  driven,  in  midwinter,  from  the 
only  roofs  there  were  to  shelter  them,  by  the  flames 
which  the  wantonness  of  his  soldiers  had  kindled.  With 
his  full  knowledge  and  tacit  approval,  too  great  a  por 
tion  of  his  advance  resolved  itself  into  bands  of  jewelry 
thieves  and  plate- closet  burglars. ' ' 1  The  government's 
Records  contain  all  the  confirmation  of  this  showing 
that  any  one  can  desire.  Major-General  O.  O.  Howard, 
writing  from  Rice  Creek  Springs,  S.  C.,  February  20, 
1865,  to  Major-General  F.  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  calls  attention 
to  "  the  most  outrageous  robberies  of  watches  and  jew 
elry,  etc.,"  and  adds:  "A  case  has  come  to  my 
notice  where  a  watch  and  several  articles  of  jewelry 
were  stolen  by  a  foraging  party  under  the  eye  of  the 
commissioned  officer  in  charge.  Another  where  a 
brute  had  violently  assaulted  a  lady  by  striking  her, 
and  had  then  robbed  her  of  a  valuable  gold  watch.2 
In  one  instance  ...  an  officer  with  a  foraging 
party  had  allowed  his  men  to  take  rings  from  the  fin 
gers  of  ladies  in  his  presence.7'  3  Two  such  Union  for- 


1  Whitelaw  Eeid,  Ohio  in  the  War,  Vol.  I,  pp.  475-479. 

2  Rebellion  Records,  Series  I,  Vol.  XLVII,  Part  II,  p.  505. 

3  A  letter  dated  February  26,  1865,  from  a  lieutenant  in  Sher 
man's  army  to  his  wife  in   Boston,  which  fell  into  Confederate 
hands  and  was  published  in   the  Macon  Telegraph,  February  17, 
1907,  reads  in  part  as  follows  :  "  We  have  had  a  glorious  time  in 
this  State.     Unrestricted  license  to  burn  and  plunder  was  the  order 
of  the  day.     ...     I  have  at  least  a  quart  of  jewelry  for  you  and 
all  the  girls — and  some  No.  1  diamond  rings  and  pins  among  them. 
.     .     .     Tell  Sallie  I  am  saving  a  pearl  bracelet  and  earrings  for 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  287 

agers  being  shot  by  Confederates  and  " labeled"  as  a 
warning  to  their  kind,  Sherman  in  retaliation  ordered 
that  Confederate  prisoners  be  selected,  shot,  and  left 
along  the  roadside  also  " labeled"  in  warning.1 
Brevet-Major  C.  E.  Woods,  reporting  to  his  superior 
from  Columbia,  February  17,  1865,  refers  to  "the 
countless  villains  of  every  command  that  were 
roaming  the  streets"  of  that  hapless  city  on  the  night 
of  the  conflagration.2  Doubtless  it  was  the  same 
" countless  villains"  who  on  the  march  through 
Georgia  slashed  their  swords  through  old  family  por 
traits,  smashed  fine  china,  split  open  pianos  and  organs 
with  axes,  loaded  themselves  with  silver,  robbed  citi 
zens  of  their  watches,  violently  pulled  earrings  from 
the  ears  of  unprotected  women,  and  who  at  Greenville, 
in  order  to  force  the  surrender  of  supposed  hidden 
treasure,  twice  hanged  Judge  Hiram  Warner,  of  the 
State  Supreme  Court,  leaving  him  for  dead.3 

her.  But  Lambert  got  the  necklace  and  breastpin  of  the  same 
set.  I  am  trying  to  trade  him  out  of  them.  These  were  taken 
from  the  Misses  Jamisons,  daughters  of  the  president  of  the  South 
Carolina  secession  convention."  The  writer,  whose  full  name  is 
given,  stated  that  officers  disguised  as  privates  took  part  in  the 
looting  expeditions,  and  that  all  officers  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest  received  a  share  of  the  spoil  more  or  less  bountiful  accord 
ing  to  their  rank,  there  being  fixed  and  definite  rules  of  division. 
The  share  of  a  single  officer  of  the  highest  rank  "  in  gold  watches 
and  chains  alone  at  Columbia  was  two  hundred  and  seventy-five 
(275)."  This  charge,  as  will  be  observed,  is  not  supported  by  the 
emphatic  protest  of  Major-General  O.  O.  Howard  quoted  above. 

1  Rebellion  Records,  Vol.  XLVII,  Part  II,  p.  537. 

2  Rebellion  Records,  Series  I,  Vol.  XLVII,  Part  II,  p.  547- 

3  His  grandson,    Mr.   H.   Warner  Hill,   of  Atlanta,  in  a  letter 
dated  January  19,  1907,  says:  "They  took  a  long  leather  halter, 
tied  one  end  around  his  neck  and  the  other  to  a  sapling  and  let  it 
go.     With  a  jerk  he  was  swung  up  and  rendered  unconscious,  and 
was  cut  down  in  that  condition."     When  he  revived  they  repeated 
their  demands,  he  was  again  swung  up,  "and  this  time  they  low 
ered  him  and  left  him  on  the  ground  for  dead. "    They  then  set 


288  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

The  American  who  would  like  to  believe  in  native 
stock  from  the  Canada  line  to  the  Eio  Grande  is  em 
barrassed  to  know  where  to  place  Sherman's  "  bum 
mers/'  and  finds  himself  hoping  that  most  of  them 
were  of  the  European  scum  enlisted  in  the  Northern 
armies.  Sherman  himself,  though  he  fully  lived  up  to 
his  own  theory  that  war  is  hell,  was  in  one  particular 
far  more  considerate  than  the  harpies  that  flocked  into 
the  conquered  country  after  the  fighting  was  done.  In 
his  letter  to  General  Halleck,  December  31,  1864,  he 
said  :  "I  would  deem  it  wise  so  far  to  respect  the  prej  - 
udices  of  the  people  of  Savannah  as  not  to  garrison 
the  place  with  negro  troops.  It  seems  a  perfect  bug 
bear  to  them."  *  And  to  General  Grant  on  the  same 
date  he  wrote:  "Five  thousand  men  will  be  plenty 
and  white  troops  will  be  best,  as  the  people  are  dread 
fully  alarmed  lest  we  garrison  the  place  with  negroes. 
You  know  that  people  have  prejudices  that  must  be 
regarded.  Prejudice,  like  religion,  cannot  be  dis 
cussed."  a 

On  June  23,  1864,  Stephens  wrote  hopefully : 
"Temporary  invasion  is  not  conquest.  The  loss  of 
property  may  be  great,  the  devastation  appalling  ; 
still,  so  long  as  our  army  is  preserved  the  work  of  the 
enemy  is  unaccomplished.  We  may  all  be  subjected 
to  privations  and  sacrifices ;  these  can  be  borne,  not 
only  for  six  months,  but  for  years,  if  the  right  spirit  is 

fire  to  their  victim's  buggy,  says  Mr.  Hill,  and  the  flames  "  caught 
the  dry  leaves  which  burned  up  to  where  my  grandfather  lay,  and 
the  heat,  as  I  have  often  heard  him  say,  revived  him."  With  a 
great  effort  he  saved  himself  from  the  flames  and  reached  his 
house,  where  he  lay  seriously  ill  for  days. 

1  Rebellion  Records,  Series  I,  Vol,  XLIV,  p.  842. 
.  841. 


THE  SOUTH' S  HANDICAPS  IN  THE  WAE  289 

kept  alive  with  our  people."  This  is  true  enough — 
with  certain  reservations.  Stephens  forgot  that  even 
the  most  patriotic  citizens  and  the  bravest  soldiers — 
particularly  the  latter — must  eat.  Nor  had  he  then 
heard  of  Sheridan's  work  in  Virginia,  or  of  Sherman's 
in  his  own  State,  and  he  could  not  realize  how  exten 
sive  and  absolutely  "  appalling  "  would  be  the  "  dev 
astation"  of  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  during  the 
following  autumn  and  winter  of  1864-5. 


CHAPTEE  XIV 

STEPHENS  OPPOSES  DAVIS'S  POLICIES 

WITH  Alexander  H.  Stephens  State  sovereignty 
and  the  protection  of  the  liberties  of  the  people  were 
ingrained  principles,  and  these,  together  with  a  lively 
fear  that  the  Confederate  government  might  exercise 
larger  powers  than  those  granted  it  by  the  seceding 
States,  were^  chiefly  responsible  for  his  too  open  and 
therefore  damaging  opposition  to  certain  policies  of 
that  government.  It  seemed  to  be  impossible  for  him 
to  sink  the  question  of  the  rights  of  Georgia  and  of 
the  people  even  temporarily  in  the  larger  question  of 
the  needs  of  the  Confederacy  in  time  of  war  when  or 
dinarily  doubtful  expedients  might  be  legitimate  be 
cause  of  imperative  necessity. 

Dissatisfied  from  the  outset  with  the  Confederate 
President's  exercise  of  the  appointing  power,  he  was 
soon  disturbed  over  the  administration's  failure  to 
make  what  he  regarded  as  a  judicious  use  of  available 
resources,  particularly  in  the  matter  of  cotton,  and  he 
promptly  opposed  the  policy  of  conscription  as  danger 
ous  and  possibly  fatal,  as  tending  to  check  the  ardor 
of  the  people,  and  as  hostile  to  the  rights  of  the  States 
individually.  He  was  further  alarmed  by  the  suspen 
sion  of  the  privilege  of  habeas  corpus  and  the  subordi 
nation  of  the  civil  to  the  military  power  in  some  sections 
of  the  country.  To  his  mind  under  no  circumstances 
could  the  exigencies  of  war  justify  these  conditions — 
which  he  unconsciously  magnified — and  it  was  in  vain 


OPPOSES  DA  VIS'S  POLICIES  291 

that  the  supporters  of  the  administration  urged,  with 
force,  that  the  immediate  object  of  the  struggle  was  in 
dependence,  not  civil  liberty,  that  liberty  might  well 
be  sacrificed  to  independence  temporarily,  and  that 
after  the  one  was  secured  the  other  could  readily  be 
restored. 

It  may  be  that  the  policy  of  conscription  was 
resorted  to  too  soon,  for  never  was  a  response  to  a  call 
for  volunteers  more  prompt  and  enthusiastic  than  in 
the  Southern  States  during  1861,  but  the  facts  brought 
to  notice  in  the  preceding  chapter  clearly  indicate  that 
the  policy  was  necessary  later.  Aside  from  the  ques 
tion  of  necessity,  conscription  is  entirely  defensible  on 
the  ground  that  it  distributes  the  burdens  of  war 
among  the  unwilling  as  well  as  among  the  patriotic 
and  responsive.  Stephens,  however,  was  confident 
that  volunteers  in  plenty  would  have  come  forward, 
and  while  at  home  in  Georgia  in  the  spring  of  1862,  he 
pronounced  the  conscription  act  very  bad  policy. 
"  Conscripts  will  go  into  battle  as  a  horse  goes  from 
home,"  he  said  ;  "  volunteers  as  a  horse  goes  toward 
home."  Among  his  friends  he  also  described  the  Con 
federate  Congress  as  a  "  very  poor ' '  one.  ' i  There  are 
few  men  of  ability  in  the  House ;  in  the  Senate  not 
more  than  two  or  three."  The  only  real  energy  he 
could  discover  in  the  Confederate  government  "  re 
sembled  that  of  a  turtle  after  fire  has  been  put  on  his 
back."  His  discouragement  led  him  to  extreme  state 
ments.  "  The  day  for  a  vigorous  policy  is  past,"  he 
lamented.  *  *  It  is  too  late  to  do  anything.  I  fear  we 
are  ruined  irretrievably."  On  February  26,  1862, 
he  wrote  to  Linton  Stephens  :  l  i  The  message  of  the 
President,  sent  into  Congress  yesterday,  surprised  me. 


292  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

It  is  not  such  a  paper  as  I  or  the  country  expected. 
But  we  have  to  bear  what  we  cannot  mend."  He  com 
plained  often  of  Congress  in  a  similar  way. 

"I  am  unremitting,"  he  wrote,  August  27,  1862, 
1 1  in  my  efforts  to  get  Congress  to  awaken  to  the  heavy 
responsibility  resting  upon  them  at  this  crisis  to  save 
our  constitutional  liberties."  A  few  days  later  he 
complained  of  "  the  readiness  with  which  our  people 
surrender  most  important  and  essential  constitutional 
rights  to  what  for  the  moment  they  consider  the 
necessity  of  the  case,"  as,  for  example,  the  "  sub 
mission,  without  a  murmur,  to  the  usurpations  of 
commanding  generals  in  their  orders  of  impressment, 
establishing  martial  law,  appointing  provost  marshals 
and  governors  in  certain  localities,"  etc.  "All  such 
orders,"  he  declared,  "  are  palpable  and  dangerous 
usurpations,  and  if  permitted  to  continue  will  end  in 
military  despotism.  There  is  nothing  that  has  given 
me  half  so  much  concern  lately  as  these  same  military 
orders  and  usurpations.  Not  even  the  fall  of  New 
Orleans  or  the  loss  of  the  Virginia.  Better  in  my 
judgment  that  Eichmond  should  fall,  and  that  the 
enemy's  armies  should  sweep  our  whole  country  from 
the  Potomac  to  the  Gulf  than  that  our  people  should 
submissively  yield  obedience  to  one  of  these  edicts  of 
our  own  generals.  I  do  not  question  the  patriotism 
[in  such  acts]  .  .  .  but  it  is  the  principle  in 
volved."  '  Yet  in  the  same  paragraph  he  inconsist 
ently  speaks  with  horror  of  worse  conditions  under 
Lincoln's  government.  "  It  requires  no  statesmanship 
to  see  that  the  North  is  already  a  despotism  complete 
and  fearful.  There  will  never,  I  apprehend,  be  any- 
1  Johnston  and  Browne,  pp.  419-20. 


OPPOSES  DA  VIS'S  POLICIES  293 

thing  like  constitutional  liberty  in  that  country 
again." 

It  is  plain  from  these  utterances  how  far  apart  were 
the  Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy  and  those  of  its 
representatives  who  desired  first  of  all  to  win  the  war 
by  vigorous  measures  and  every  possible  means, 
leaving  constitutional  liberty  and  ideal  civil  govern 
ment  to  be  secured  afterward.  It  pained  him  that  the 
people  "seem  willingly  and  even  patriotically  to  be 
yielding  to  usurpations,"  and  no  thought  apparently 
occurred  to  him  that  his  own  unquestioned  patriotism 
might  be  unwisely  directed  in  this  matter.  Again  and 
again  he  points  to  Lincoln's  extra- constitutional  acts 
and  the  methods  of  the  Washington  government  as  a 
frightful  example.  "The  North  to-day  presents  the 
spectacle  of  a  free  people  having  gone  to  war  to  make 
freemen  of  slaves,  while  all  they  have  as  yet  attained 
is  to  make  slaves  of  themselves."  It  is  true  that  the 
North  as  well  as  the  South  passed  through  a  revolution 
during  the  seventh  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  that  the  government  of  the  United  States  was 
never  quite  the  same  afterward,  but  it  is  no  less  true 
that  those  who  would  win  a  war  cannot  afford  to  stop 
too  often  in  the  midst  of  hurrying  events  and  debate 
the  question  of  constitutional  powers  and  limitations. 
Stephens  really  seems  to  have  been  half-hearted— 
without  knowing  it — as  a  result  of  the  scruples  noted. 
Certainly  his  utterances  would  appear  to  show  that  he 
was  more  concerned  about  maintaining  the  constitu 
tional  rights  of  the  Southern  people  than  about  winning 
the  war. 

While  at  home  in  Georgia  in  the  spring  of  1862  he 
told  his  friends  that  he  would  not  soon  return  to 


294  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Eichmond.  "I  can  do  no  good  there,"  he  said. 
"The  policy  of  the  government  is  far  against  my 
judgment,  and  I  am  frequently  embarrassed  on  account 
of  this  difference."  For  this  reason,  and  because  of 
his  feeble  health  and  the  difficulties  of  travel  during 
the  war,  he  was  absent  from  the  Confederate  capital 
much  of  the  time.  At  one  period  he  was  not  seen 
there  for  nearly  a  year  and  a  half.  He  remained  at 
home  from  February  1,  1862,  to  August  of  that  year, 
from  October,  1862,  to  May,  1863,  and  from  July  10, 
1863,  to  December  5,  1864.  During  this  last  long 
interval  he  made  one  effort  to  reach  Eichmond — in 
May,  1864 — but,  discouraged  by  the  delays  and  hard 
ships  of  travel,  he  abandoned  the  attempt  in  North 
Carolina  and  returned  to  Georgia.  He  finally  reached 
the  capital  in  December,  1864,  and  extended  his  last 
visit  there  about  two  months,  until  after  the  Hampton 
Eoads  Conference,  when,  on  February  9,  1865,  he 
started  on  his  homeward  journey.  "  The  opposition 
of  Mr.  Stephens  to  the  policies  most  in  favor  at  Eich 
mond,"  explains  his  biographer  and  friend,  Eichard 
Malcolm  Johnston,  ' l  left  him  no  choice  but  to  remain, 
as  far  as  possible  retired  from  public  affairs,  except 
when  imperative  duty  summoned  him."  l 

The  relations  of  Stephens  and  Davis  were  at  first 
agreeable  and  confidential.  "We  are  all  here  har 
monious  and  united,"  the  former  wrote  from  Mont 
gomery,  May  14,  1861.  i  i  Every  one  feels  the  dangers 
that  surround  us,  and  every  one  seems  determined  to 
do  his  whole  duty.  Private  considerations  have  all 
merged  in  the  public  safety."  But  such  harmony 
did  not  last.  In  January,  1863,  Stephens  stated  that 
1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  430. 


OPPOSES  DA  VIS'S  POLICIES  295 

lie  was  ou  good  terms  with  Davis  personally  and 
added  :  "  He  used  to  send  for  me  often  to  consult  with 
me  ;  but  since  the  government  has  been  removed  to 
Eichmoud  he  has  done  so  but  once.  .  .  .  This  was 
in  November,  1861. "  *  Stephens  expressed  ignorance 
of  the  cause  of  the  "  change  "  in  Davis,  but  the  reader 
of  the  former's  letters  and  speeches  finds  no  difficulty 
in  arriving  at  a  satisfactory  explanation.  It  was  inev 
itable  almost  from  the  beginning  that  the  Confederacy's 
President  should  have  asked  the  confidential  advice  of 
his  associate  only  when  that  course  seemed  imperative. 
Stephens  undoubtedly  chafed  in  his  inactive  role  of 
Vice-President,  such  an  officer  being  little  more  than 
a  mere  chairman  of  the  Senate  unless  his  chief  should 
will  otherwise.  '  *  I  have  strong  inclinations  to 
resign  my  position,"  he  wrote  on  December  23,  1864, 
giving  as  his  reason  that  he  could  "never  approve 
doctrines  and  principles  which  are  likely  to  become 

/xed  in  this  country." 
He,  however,  was  no  figurehead  when  he  was  pres- 
^nt  in  Eichmond ;  he  seems  virtually  to  have  been  a 
leader  of  the  opposition  to  the  administration  of  which 
he  was  a  member.  He  inspired  action  in  the  Confeder 
ate  Congress  by  private  discussion  with  its  members, 
and  once  he  even  demanded  the  right  to  speak  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate,  as  will  later  appear/  Writing 
from  the  capital,  August  27,  1862,  on  the  subject  of 
the  declaration  of  martial  law  and  the  subordination  of 
civil  to  military  authority  in  certain  localities,  he  said  : 

"  I  have  not  been  idle  in  attempting  to  arouse  our 
members  of  Congress,   both  in  the  Senate  and  the 
1  Johnston  and  Browne,  pp.  426-7- 


296  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

House,  to  the  importance  of  arresting  these  proceed 
ings.  ...  I  got  Mr.  Semmes,  the  most  sensible 
man  in  the  Senate,  to  introduce  resolutions  there  re 
quiring  the  Judiciary  Committee  to  report  on  these 
questions.  That  Committee  is  now  at  work,  and 
matters  are  progressing  favorably.  I  have  got  Semmes 
to  agree  with  me  that  no  power  in  this  country  can 
establish  martial  law  j  neither  the  President  nor 
Congress,  much  less  a  general  in  the  field.  Congress 
may  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  ;  but  that  is  the 
utmost  extent  to  which  they  can  go.  ...  I  have 
pointed  out  six  plain  and  palpable  violations  of  the 
Constitution  in  these  military  orders.  I  am  unremit 
ting  in  my  efforts,  in  a  calm  and  dispassionate  manner, 
to  get  Congress  to  awaken  to  the  heavy  responsibilities 
resting  upon  them  in  this  crisis  to  save  our  constitu 
tional  liberties  ;  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that  my  efforts 
have  thus  far  met  with  more  success  than  I  antici 
pated  when  I  saw  the  general  apathy  prevailing  at 
first.  .  .  .  The  President,  I  am  informed,  has 
written  to  all  the  generals  revoking  these  orders  of 
martial  law,  and  telling  them  they  have  no  power  to 
assume  such  authority/7 

When,  in  December,  1864,  Stephens  wrote  to  his 
brother  in  Georgia  of  his  "  strong  inclination  "  to  resign 
his  position  as  Vice- President  because  of  his  disap 
proval  of  his  government's  policies,  he  referred  to  a 
movement  in  the  House  again  to  suspend  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus,  and  to  his  effort  (an  offer  of  $220)  to 
induce  the  Eichmond  Whig  to  republish  Judge  Taney's 
decision  against  such  a  policy. — adding  :  "If  this  bill 
passes  in  such  form  as  it  is  most  likely  to  pass,  I  do 
trust  Governor  Brown  will  issue  his  proclamation  ad- 
\  vising  the  justices  of  the  inferior  courts  in  the  State  to 
^disregard  it  until  the  matter  may  be  adjudicated  by 
our  own  Supreme  Court.  If  that  court  shall  decide 


OPPOSES  DA  VIS'S  POLICIES  297 

the  act  to  be  constitutional,  I  shall  feel  very  little  further 
interest  in  the  result  of  the  conflict.  It  will  simply  be 
a  contest  between  dynasties — a  struggle  between  two 
powers — not  for  rights  or  constitutional  liberty,  but 
for  despotism."  There  could  scarcely  be  harmonious 
relations  between  the  Confederate  President  and  Vice- 
President  after  the  latter  had  reached  such  a  frame  of 
mind  as  this. 

Stephens  did  not  share  in  the  delusive  hope  of  rec 
ognition  by  England  and  France,  taking  the  view 
that  there  was  no  real  sympathy  in  Europe  for  either 
the  Union  or  the  Confederacy.  "Were  I  the  Presi 
dent,"  he  wrote  in  September,  1862,  "  I  should  forth 
with  recall  all  my  ministers  or  commissioners  abroad. 
European  powers  look  upon  this  war  with  a  complica 
tion  of  views.  Their  interests  prompt  them  to  side 
with  us,  but  the  feelings  prompted  by  these  interests 
are  about  equally  balanced  by  their  aversion  to 
slavery.  They  had  become  very  jealous  of  the  United 
States  as  a  great  and  growing  power.  Its  example  as 
a  republican  government  was  becoming  dangerous  to 
them.  They  therefore  rejoice  to  see  that  strife  now 
raging  here  which,  if  left  alone,  will,  in  their  judg 
ment,  end  in  the  destruction  of  republicanism  on  both 
sides  of  the  line.  England  and  France  do  not  intend 
to  recognize  us,  I  think,  so  long  as  we  show  ability 
to  weaken,  cripple,  and  injure  the  Northern  govern 
ment."/ 

Practically  the  same  view  was  expressed  by  others  a 
few  months  later.  In  January,  1863,  the  recall  of  the 
commissioners  from  Europe  was  urged  in  the  Confed 
erate  Congress,  and  the  belief  was  expressed  in  the 
Richmond  newspapers  that  the  English  policy  was  to 


298  ALEXAKDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

let  the  war  continue  long  enough  to  destroy  the 
strength  of  both  North  and  South.  In  favoring 
the  return  of  the  envoys,  the  Examiner,  greatly  exas 
perated,  referred  to  them  as  "now  waiting  in  the 
servants'  halls  and  on  the  back  stairs.77  Their  reports 
were  mostly  discouraging,  but  Congress  did  not  vote 
for  their  recall  and  they  remained  at  their  posts. 
After  long  residence  in  London  and  anxious  observa 
tions  of  all  phases  of  the  conditions,  Mason  reported  to 
Secretary  Benjamin  that  what  influenced  both  parties 
in  England  against  recognizing  the  Confederacy  was 
not  so  much  the  slavery  question  as  l  i  the  fear  of  war 
with  the  United  States,77  and  "a  tacit  conviction  in 
the  English  mind  that  the  longer  the  war  lasted  the 
better  for  them,  because  of  the  consequent  exhaustion 
of  both  parties.77 1  French  diplomacy  was  even  more 
inherently  selfish,  the  breaking  up  of  the  United  States 
being  regarded  by  the  Emperor  as  favorable  to  his 
schemes  of  colonial  expansion.  Louis  Napoleon 
dreamed  of  "  a  pied-a-terre  on  the  Florida  coast,77  and 
even  of  recovering  a  foothold  in  Louisiana.2  The  Con 
federate  government  was  informed  as  to  this,  but  Sec 
retary  Benjamin  caused  it  to  be  clearly  understood  that 
"we  do  not  intend  to  allow  ourselves  to  be  made  a 
convenient  instrument  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
designs  of  others. 7  7 '  The  reluctant  decision  to  sacrifice 
slavery  as  the  price  of  recognition  and  of  success  came 
too  late.4  The  London  Times  found  it  convenient  in 

1  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Confederacy  (Richardson,  1905),  Vol. 
II,  p.  710. 

2  Confederate  Archives  (MSS.  Vol.  80— Benjamin  to  Slidell,  Feb. 
7,  1863),  in  the  Treasury  Department,  Washington. 

3  Ibid.  (MSS.  Vol.  80— Benjamin  to  Slidell.  June  23,  1864). 

4  Journal  of  the  Confederate  Congress,  Vol.  VII,  p.  786. 


OPPOSES  DA  VIS'S  POLICIES  299 

January,  1865 — when  the  exhaustion  of  the  Confeder 
acy  was  apparent  to  European  observers — to  announce 
that  an  offer  to  abandon  slavery  would  be  useless,  as 
recognition  was  withheld  for  many  other  reasons  ;  and 
when,  in  the  following  March,  Mason  proposed  to  the 
Earl  of  Donoughmore  (a  warm  friend  of  the  Confeder 
acy)  to  go  to  Lord  Palmerston  and  offer  abolition  for 
recognition,  it  was  "  replied  that  the  time  had  gone  by 
now,  especially  as  our  fortunes  seemed  more  adverse 
than  ever  "  (after  Sherman's  devastating  march).1  It 
was  at  last  clear  to  the  authorities  at  Eichmond,  as  it 
seems  to  have  been  clear  to  Stephens  as  far  back  as 
September,  1862,  that  all  efforts  to  obtain  recognition 
from  Europe  were  more  than  vain. 

As  early  as  January,  1863,  Stephens  had  noted  an 
ominous  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  British  press. 
In  a  letter  written  on  the  eighteenth  of  that  month, 
discussing  a  recent  message  of  President  Davis,  which 
— barring  the  "  recommendation  of  the  States  guaran 
teeing  a  portion  of  the  Confederate  debt,"  and  the 
" boast  about  the  working  of  the  conscript  laws" — he 
pronounced  "  decidedly  the  best  on  the  whole,  that  has 
yet  emanated  from  him,"  Stephens  went  on  to  say  : 
"  I  have  been  wondering  with  myself  for  some  time  as 
to  what  it  is  that  has  caused  the  change  in  the  leading 
British  press  toward  us  and  our  cause.  There  evi 
dently  has  been  such  a  change.  This  time  last  year, 
before  that  and  up  to  midsummer,  the  London  Times 
and  other  papers  were  more  friendly  to  us  than 
they  have  been  since."  He  attributed  this  to  the 
influence  of  Lord  Lyons,  the  British  Ambassador  at 
Washington,  "an  Abolitionist  of  the  Palmerston  and 

1  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Confederacy,  Vol.  II,  p.  717. 


300  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

Seward  school,7'  during  his  visit  to  England  in  the 
summer  of  1862.  The  indications  are  that  it  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  even  then  shrewd  British  observers 
were  arriving  at  the  conclusion — and  the  representa 
tions  of  Lord  Lyons  may  have  hastened  the  process — 
that  the  Confederacy  would  eventually  be  overcome. 

Financial  embarrassments  were  among  the  Con 
federacy's  gravest.  The  States  of  the  Union,  retain 
ing  control  of  all  the  machinery  of  government  at 
Washington,  began  the  war  with  a  full  treasury,  un 
limited  credit,  and  other  advantages  of  incalculable 
value.  The  new  Confederate  government  was  hardly 
born  when  it  became  involved  in  an  exhausting  war 
for  which  it  was  in  no  way  prepared,  except  in  the 
rare  good  quality  of  the  enthusiastic  volunteers  who 
took  the  field.  It  had  to  break  new  ground  in  every 
direction  and  began  with  an  empty  treasury.  To 
raise  an  army  was  easy,  but  the  problem  of  securing 
guns,  ammunition  and  a  navy  was  one  that  could 
never  be  more  than  partially  solved,  in  view  of  the 
blockade  excluding  munitions  of  war  from  an  agricul 
tural  section  practically  without  means  for  their  manu 
facture.  The  question  of  revenue  pressed  from  the 
first.  In  a  private  letter  written  May  14,  1861, 
Stephens  said : 

"One  of  the  great  pressures  now  upon  us  is  the 
want  of  money.  Our  expenditures  are  upon  a  basis 
of  not  less,  I  suppose,  than  forty  millions  per  annum. 
How  are  we  to  get  the  money  f  Loans,  treasury  notes, 
and  direct  taxes  are  our  only  expedients.  Taxes  to 
meet  interest  on  bonds  and  treasury-notes  must  be 
raised.  It  is  thought  that  one-quarter  of  one  per  cent. 
on  the  property  of  the  Confederate  States  will  be 


OPPOSES  DA  VIS'S  POLICIES  301 

sufficient.  This  will  make  the  Confederate  tax  in 
Georgia  about  four  times  what  our  State  tax  has  been 
for  several  years.  Independence  and  liberty  will  re 
quire  money  as  well  as  blood.  The  people  must  meet 
both  with  promptness  and  firmness." 

Customs  duties  were  a  slender  reliance  when  every 
incoming  vessel  had  to  run  the  blockade,  and  a 
burdensome  war  tax  on  the  people  became  imperative. 
This,  in  part,  took  the  form  of  a  tax  in  kind  on  all 
farm  products,  the  farmer  being  '  *  allowed  to  retain 
fifty  bushels  of  sweet  and  Irish  potatoes,  one  hundred 
bushels  of  corn,  or  fifty  bushels  of  wheat,  twenty 
bushels  of  peas  or  beans,  and  a  certain  amount  for 
raising  hogs."  l  Horses  and  mules  and  also  slaves 
were  impressed  for  working  on  fortifications.  But  no 
expedients  could  prevent  the  ruinous  depreciation  of 
the  Confederate  currency.  By  October  1,  1864,  six 
months  before  the  collapse,  the  public  debt  had  risen  to 
$1,126,381,025.  Naturally  the  value  of  cotton  as  an 
available  asset,  the  Southern  States  having  a  virtual 
monopoly  of  this  great  staple,  was  much  discussed. 
Many  in  the  South  were  disposed  to  rely  on  it  as  a 
political  as  well  as  a  commercial  power,  that  would 
force  recognition  from  Great  Britain  at  the  demand  of 
her  suffering  cotton-manufacturing  population  ;  but 
difference  of  opinion  was  wide  and  no  settled  policy 
developed  until  it  was  too  late  to  attempt  any  such  plan 
of  export  as  was  from  the  first  advised  by  Stephens. 
On  this  subject  he  said  in  a  speech  in  October,  1862  : 

"I  was  in  favor  of  the  government  taking  all  the 
cotton  that  would  be  subscribed  for  eight  per  cent. 

1  Carry,  Civil  History  of  the  Confederate  States,  p.  110. 


302  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

bonds  at  a  rate  as  high  as  ten  cents  a  pound.  Two 
millions  of  bales  of  the  last  year's  crop  might  have 
been  counted  on  as  certain  on  this  plan.  This  at  ten 
cents,  with  bales  of  average  weight,  would  have  cost 
the  government  one  hundred  millions  of  bonds.  With 
this  amount  of  cotton  on  hand  and  pledged,  any  num 
ber,  short  of  fifty,  of  the  best  iron-clad  steamers 
could  have  been  contracted  for  and  built  in  Europe, — 
steamers  at  the  cost  of  two  millions  each  could  be 
procured.  Thirty  millions  would  have  got  fifteen  of 
these,  which  might  have  been  enough  for  our  purpose. 
Five  might  have  been  ready  by  the  first  of  January  last 
(1862)  to  open  some  one  of  the  ports  blockaded  on  our 
coast.  Three  of  these  could  have  been  left  to  keep  the 
port  open,  and  two  could  have  conveyed  the  cotton 
across  the  water,  if  necessary.  Thus  the  debt  could 
have  been  promptly  paid  with  cotton  at  a  much  higher 
price  than  it  cost,  and  a  channel  of  trade  kept  open 
till  others,  and  as  many  more  as  necessary,  might  have 
been  built  and  paid  for  in  the  same  way.  At  a  cost  of 
less  than  one  month's  present  expenditures  of  our 
army,  our  coasts  might  have  been  cleared.  Besides 
this,  at  least  two  more  millions  of  bales  of  the  old 
crop  on  hand  might  have  been  counted  on  ;  this,  with 
the  other,  making  a  debt  in  round  numbers  to  the 
planters  of  two  hundred  million  dollars.  But  this 
cotton  held  in  Europe  until  its  price  shall  be  fifty 
cents  a  pound,  would  constitute  a  fund  of  at  least  one 
billion  dollars,  which  would  not  only  have  kept  our 
finances  in  sound  condition,  but  the  clear  profit  of 
eight  hundred  million  dollars  would  have  met  the  en 
tire  expenses  of  the  war  for  years  to  come." 

At  this  time,  October,  1862,  Stephens  still  advocated 
a  determined  effort  to  cariy  out  his  idea,  although  it 
was  no  doubt  then  too  late  to  do  so  with  any  consider 
able  success.  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  has  been 
quoted  as  saying  that  as  the  blockade  was  not  fully 


OPPOSES  D AVIS' S  POLICIES  303 

effective  for  nearly  a  year  after  it  was  instituted,  the 
Confederate  government  could  have  shipped  4,000,000 
bales  of  cotton  to  England  and  sold  it  to  advantage. 
On  the  other  hand,  Secretary  Memminger  pronounced 
such  a  scheme  impracticable,  declaring  that,  as  the 
blockade  had  been  instituted  in  May,  1861,  it  would 
have  required  four  thousand  ships  to  get  the  cotton 
out  before  that  time.  He  pointedly  argued  that 
private  enterprise  shipped  as  much  as  a  government 
without  a  navy  could  have  exported. 

The  " cotton  famine"  policy,  which  Davis  and 
others  favored  as  a  means  of  compelling  the  recogni 
tion  of  England,  was  at  first  partially  successful  owing 
to  the  blockade,  the  price  of  the  staple  rising  to  fifty 
cents  in  England  and  falling  to  eight  cents  in  the 
South ;  but  in  the  end  it  failed  completely,  as  a 
result  of  the  cotton  "  leaks."  Thus  it  would  appear 
that  the  plan  of  making  cotton  a  purely  commercial 
asset,  if  promptly  adopted,  might  have  had  a  con 
siderable  measure  of  success  and  strengthened  the 
Confederacy's  slim  chances  of  securing  a  navy.  Even 
as  it  was,  cotton  was  finally  made  the  basis  of  a  loan 
negotiated  through  agents  in  London  and  Paris  in 
1863.  The  bonds  for  this  loan  bore  interest  at  seven  per 
cent,  and  were  exchangeable  for  cotton  or  redeemable 
at  par.  The  security  was  the  Confederacy' s  engagement 
to  deliver  the  cotton  not  later  than  six  months  after 
peace  between  the  belligerents. l  With  this  end  in  view 
the  Confederate  government  collected  about  250,000 
bales,  the  whole  of  which  vast  store  was  later  seized 
and  appropriated  by  the  United  States  government.2 

1  Jefferson  Davis,  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederacy,  Vol.  I,  p.  496. 

2  Curry,  p.  128. 


304  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

Stephens  was  earnestly  opposed,  and  apparently  with 
good  reason,  to  the  plan  of  those  who  urged  a  complete 
cessation  of  cotton  culture  and  the  destruction  of  the 
stock  on  hand  in  the  belief  that  England  would  thus  be 
forced  to  raise  the  blockade.  In  his  speech  of  October, 
1862,  quoted  from  above,  he  said  :  "The  great  error 
of  those  who  supposed  that  King  Cotton  would  compel 
the  English  ministry  to  recognize  our  government  and 
break  the  blockade,  and  who  will  look  for  the  same 
result  from  the  total  abandonment  of  its  culture,  con 
sists  in  mistaking  the  nature  of  the  kingdom  of  the 
potentate.  His  power  is  commercial  and  financial,  not 
political."  As  late  as  1864  it  was  contended  in  the 
South  that  if  the  cotton  were  withheld  from  abroad,  if 
the  l  i  leak  '  >  were  stopped,  a  cotton  crisis  in  England 
would  follow  and  Manchester  would  force  the  ministry 
to  recognize  the  Confederacy.  But  the  cotton  "  leak  " 
was  never,  and  probably  could  never  have  been, 
closed.  The  enterprise  of  private  speculators,  to 
whom  personal  gain  was  everything,  kept  it  continually 
flowing.  It  was  to  the  interest  of  the  United  States 
government  to  make  the  leak  as  large  as  possible,  and 
the  purchase  of  the  products  of  the  Confederate  States 
was  therefore  authorized.  The  result,  according  to 
George  McHenry's  Cotton  Crisis,  published  at  Eich- 
mond  in  December,  1864,  was  a  constant  outflow  of 
cotton  from  Arkansas,  Louisiana  and  Texas.  Neces 
sity  at  last  compelled  the  Eichmond  government  itself  to 
widen  the  leak,  the  Confederate  cotton  agent  in  Missis 
sippi,  for  example,  being  authorized  in  September,  1864, 
to  sell  cotton  in  exposed  districts  to  United  States 
agents  for  gold.  It  was  also  traded  for  salt  by  per 
mission  of  the  government. 


OPPOSES  DA  VIS'S  POLICIES  305 

Eventually  there  was  a  steady  flow  of  the  staple  to 
both  England  and  the  Northern  States.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  after  September,  1863,  England  received 
indirectly  from  the  Confederacy  an  average  of  4,000 
bales  a  week.  This  cotton  went  out  through  Mexico 
as  well  as  across  the  Northern  boundary  line  and 
through  the  ships  of  blockade  runners.  G.  B.  Lamar, 
of  Savannah,  who  had  five  ships  at  his  disposal, 
wrote  Secretary  Memminger  in  March,  1864,  that  he 
could  readily  arrange  with  the  Federal  commander  of 
Fort  Pulaski  to  permit  his  ships  to  pass,  and  he  pro 
posed  taking  out  cotton  and  bringing  in  munitions  of 
war,  charging  one-half  for  freight. l  The  latter  part  of 
the  programme  was  the  only  difficulty.  In  April, 
1864,  General  Lee  put  in  force  regulations  to  prevent 
cotton  passing  across  the  lines  to  the  North  except 
when  permitted  by  the  Confederate  government.  The 
"leak"  was  not  a  trickling  stream,  but  a  river,  and 
the  "  famine  "  policy  was  a  dream.  The  export  plan 
might  have  had  better  success  in  the  beginning.  If 
the  Eichmond  authorities  in  1861  had  immediately 
seized  all  the  cotton  (paying  for  it  when  able)  and  had 
shipped  as  much  of  it  abroad  as  possible  before  inter 
rupted,  the  results  would  have  been  materially  differ 
ent.  But  undoubtedly  the  obstacles  in  the  path  of  this 
bold  and  prompt  action  were  very  serious.  The  Con 
federate  government  was  new  and  inexperienced,  feeling 
its  way,  and  conscientiously  questioning  its  own  con 
stitutional  right  to  do  this  or  that ;  it  was  essentially 
weak,  and,  with  good  reason,  feared  to  offend  the 
single  States  by  which  and  out  of  which  it  had  been 
formed  ;  the  sudden  blockade  of  Southern  ports  had  not 
1  Diary  of  J.  B.  Jones,  Vol.  II,  p.  178. 


306  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

been  expected,  and,  moreover,  the  ships  to  carry  out 
the  cotton  on  short  notice  were  not  to  be  had. 

In  the  study  of  every  phase  of  the  conditions,  the 
suggestion  forces  itself  upon  the  mind  of  the  enquirer 
that  the  Southern  Confederacy  fought  against  fate  as 
well  as  against  physical  odds. 


CHAPTER  XV 

DISASTROUS  INTERNAL  DISSENSION 

/ 

BOTH  before  and  after  the  war  Alexander  H.  Ste 
phens  was  of  great  use  to  his  section,  but  during  that 
struggle,  when  he  had  finished  rendering  valuable  as 
sistance  in  the  formation  of  the  Confederate  govern 
ment  and  the  drafting  of  its  Constitution,  his  services 
were  negative  rather  than  positive,  and  were  more  than 
offset  by  the  damage  done  through  his  open  opposition 
to  that  government's  chosen  policies.  Doubtless  there 
was  always  much  to  criticise,  but  judicious  criticism 
would  have  been  more  constructive  in  character  and 
would  have  been  uttered  in  private  councils.  The  ob 
jections  of  Stephens,  too  often  founded  on  an  academic 
ideal  of  model  civil  government  in  time  of  peace,  at 
first  reached  the  public  through  conversations  with  and 
letters  to  friends,  and  finally  from  the  platform  itself, 
becoming  an  important  factor  in  the  growth  of  a  more 
or  less  disaffected  element  in  Georgia  and  elsewhere. 
Speaking  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Confederate 
government,  still  determined  to  struggle  on  and  hop 
ing  to  win,  Stephens  and  his  friends  must  be  said  to 
have  wearied  of  the  war  and  to  have  shown  an  open 
and  damaging  willingness  to  consider  the  question  of 
asking  for  peace  too  soon,  j 

It  seems  to  have  been  in  his  mind  as  early  as  Janu- 
aryr  1863,  when,  in  a  private  letter,  he  discussed  the 
possibility  of  the  return  of  the  Southern  States  to  the 


308  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

Union  with  slavery,  and  concluded  that  after  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  this  could  never  be  accom 
plished.  Under  his  influence  about  this  time,  Lintou 
Stephens  proposed  to  introduce  resolutions  into  the 
Georgia  legislature,  the  Vice-President  of  the  Con 
federacy  assisting  in  their  formulation,  one  paragraph 
of  which  reads  :  i  l  Kesolved,  that  while  we  regard  the 
said  Conscript  Acts  as  thus  violating  the  Constitution 
of  the  Confederate  States,  and  involving  principles 
dangerous  to  liberty  as  well  as  subversive  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States  .  .  .  yet,  under  existing 
circumstances,  we  waive  all  opposition  to  their  pres 
ent  execution,  reserving  to  ourselves  the  use  of  such 
remedies  as  may  be  demanded  by  any  future  emer 
gency." 

Apparently  unaware  that,  through  such  activities  as 
these,  seeds  of  State  and  individual  disaffection  were 
being  sown,  Stephens  about  the  same  time  comments 
skeptically  on  reports  of  a  serious  resistance  to  the 
Lincoln  administration  in  the  Northwest.  "  It  is  very 
much  like  accounts  heralded  in  Northern  papers  of  the 
disaffection  among  us,"  he  says,  and  adds  truly 
enough:  "The  great  majority  of  the  masses,  both 
North  and  South,  are  true  to  the  cause  of  their  side." 
In  March,  1863,  he  wrote  deploring  the  conscript  law 
even  in  the  North  and  declaring  that  Lincoln  had  been 
a  dictator  from  the  first. 

In  a  letter  of  the  same  date  he  urged  that  the  Con 
federate  Congress  ought  to  do  something  to  "  sustain 
our  finances,"   already  on  the  verge  of  collapse,  yet 
.within  a  month  he  wrote  :     "  I  do  hope  our  State  will 
I  not  endorse  the  Confederate  bonds ;  but  I  see  A.  ex- 
[jsresses  the  opinion  that  the  bill  for  this  purpose  will 


DISASTEOUS  INTEENAL  DISSENSION     309 

pass  by  a  large  majority.  .  .  .  Those  who  vote  for 
it  will  rue  it  if  they  live.  The  whole  scheme  is  radi 
cally  wrong  in  purpose.  The  responsibility  of  creating 
debt  and  providing  for  its  payment  ought  to  rest  on  the 
same  shoulders.  .  .  .  State  endorsement  cannot 
add  a  particle  to  the  credit  of  the  bonds  in  case  of  suc 
cess  in  establishing  independence. "  But  the  establish 
ment  of  independence  already  permitted  of  doubt  in 
the  minds  of  millions,  including  Stephens  himself  who 
had  so  expressed  himself  in  a  private  letter  a  few  weeks 
earlier.  The  Confederacy  might  fall  to  pieces,  but  the 
States  would  endure,  and  without  their  endorsement  of 
the  bonds  there  would  seem  to  have  been  scant  hope  of 
sustaining  its  tottering  finances,  a  need  which  Stephens 
recognized  as  urgent.  Was  he  already  thinking  more 
of  Georgia's  than  of  the  interests  of  the  ill-fated  con 
federation  of  which  that  State  was  a  part  ? 

On  June  28,  1863,  Stephens  wrote  from  Eichmond  : 
"The  state  of  the  controversy  on  the  condition  of  af 
fairs  between  the  two  governments  in  regard  to  the 
exchange  of  prisoners  is  in  a  very  unsatisfactory  con 
dition.  We  are  upon  the  eve  of  the  bloodiest  and 
most  barbarous  system  of  retaliation.  The  enemy 
refuses  to  exchange  any  prisoner;  they  hold  all  our 
prisoners  to  retaliate  upon  if  we  execute  such  officers 
as  may  be  captured  leading  negro  troops.  Whether 
anything  can  be  done  to  avert  this  result  I  do  not 
know.  I  am  willing  to  do  all  I  can,  but  am  not 
hopeful. " 

His  letter  of  June  30th  announced  that  the  Confed 
erate  government  had  agreed  for  him  to  attempt  to 
open  negotiations  with  Lincoln.  He  had  written  to 
Davis  on  June  12th,  proposing  such  a  mission,  not 


310  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

only  to  discuss  a  settlement  of  the  prisoner  question, 
but  possibly  to  lead  to  "a  general  adjustment  ac 
ceptable  to  both  parties,  and  stop  the  further  effusion 
of  blood."  '  It  was  not  intended  as  a  peace  mission  at 
all,  Stephens  explained  afterward — not  contemplating 
"  any  overture  or  direct  offer  of  terms  of  any  sort  "— 
and  he  saw  no  reason  for  any  disposition  to  look  upon 
it  in  that  light  at  Washington.  "  With  less  than  five 
hundred  thousand  men  in  all,  from  the  beginning  up 
to  this  time,  the  Confederate  armies  had  brought  the 
enemy,  numbering  more  than  a  million,  during  the 
same  period,  almost  to  a  standstill, ' '  he  said,  and  there 
fore  he  thought  the  Confederate  government  was  in  a 
position  to  take  the  lead  in  an  effort  ' i  at  least  to  ad 
just  the  vexing  prisoner  question  and  mitigate  the 
horrors  of  war. ' 7  He  could  not  foresee  that  before  the 
mission  could  be  accomplished  events  at  Gettysburg 
and  Yicksburg  would  materially  alter  the  situation. 
When  he  reached  Eichmond  and  learned  that  Grant 
was  pressing  Vicksburg  and  that  Lee  was  invading 
Pennsylvania  he  changed  his  mind  about  the  propriety 
of  the  undertaking  at  that  time,  but  Davis  and  his 
cabinet  saw  no  reason  for  deferring  a  conference  on 
the  prisoner  question  and  the  conduct  of  the  war. 

With  this  understanding  Stephens  started  north 
ward.  The  battles  at  Gettysburg  were  fought  be 
fore  he  reached  Newport  News.  There  he  and 
his  party  were  detained  two  days  while  the  propo 
sition  for  the  conference  was  held  under  consid 
eration  at  Washington.  Meanwhile  Vicksburg  sur 
rendered.  After  this  second  disaster  to  the  Confed 
eracy  the  reply  came  from  Lincoln  that  no  com- 

1  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  II,  pp.  559-566. 


DISASTROUS  INTEENAL  DISSENSION     311 

missioners  sent  to  discuss  the  subjects  named  in  the 
correspondence  would  be  received,  or  as  Stephens 
wrote  home  on  July  10th,  a  the  proposition  was  re 
jected  by  the  enemy  after  deliberating  on  it  two  days." 
A  peace  conference  was  not  the  object,  he  having 
merely  suggested  it  as  a  possible  outcome ;  but  in 
view  of  the  ubiquitous  Northern  spies  in  Confederate 
territory  and  the  freedom  with  which  Stephens  was  in 
the  habit  of  speaking  and  writing  to  his  friends,  it  was 
inevitable  that  it  should  be  promptly  concluded  at 
Washington  that  thoughts  of  peace  were  behind  the 
proposal,  that  it  should  have  been  looked  upon  there 
as  a  confession  of  weakness,  and  that  action  should  be 
taken  accordingly.  It  was  probably  a  greater  mis 
take  than  the  Hampton  Eoads  Conference,  because  it 
was  not  due,  like  the  latter,  to  the  counsel  of  ne 
cessity. 

In  the  continuance  of  his  now  favorite  occupation  of 
criticism,  Stephens  wrote  on  January  1,  1864,  that 
"  those  at  the  head  of  our  affairs  "  seem  to  "  have  had 
no  policy,"  and  that  they  have  been  "all  along  like 
the  Tennessee  lawyer,  l  trusting  to  the  sublimity  of  luck 
and  floating  upon  the  surface  of  the  occasion.'  "  He 
adds  :  l '  But  I  will  not  croak  or  grumble ;  I  am  a 
patient  looker-on,  that  is  all" — an  utterance  as 
unconsciously  humorous  as  that  of  the  Tennessee 
lawyer. 

On  March  16,  1864,  Stephens  accepted  an  invitation 
to  address  the  legislature  of  Georgia  on  the  state  of 
public  affairs.  In  this  speech  he  sought  to  inspire  his 
hearers  with  hope  and  courage  in  spite  of  accumu 
lating  misfortunes,  and  then  proceeded  to  attack  the 
conscription  and  habeas  corpus  acts  as  dangerous  to  the 


312  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

liberties  of  the  Southern  people.  "War  is  being 
waged  against  us  by  a  strong,  unscrupulous  and  vin 
dictive  foe,"  he  said.  "From  this  quarter  threaten 
the  perils  without.  Those  within  arise  from  ques 
tions  of  policy."  It  was  these  latter  which  seemed  to 
trouble  him  most  and  to  which  he  now  devoted  nearly 
the  whole  of  his  speech  before  the  legislature. 

Of  "the  Tax  Act  and  Funding  Act,  known  together 
as  the  Financial  and  Currency  Measures,"  he  wished 
only  to  say  that  in  his  judgment  they  were  neither 
proper  nor  just ;  a  much  graver  question,  he  thought, 
was  "the  military  act  by  which  conscription  is  ex 
tended  so  as  to  embrace  all  between  the  ages  of  seven 
teen  and  fifty,  and  by  which  the  State  is  to  be  deprived 
of  so  much  of  its  labor,  and  stripped  of  the  most  ef 
ficient  portion  of  her  enrolled  militia."  By  this  sys 
tem,  he  declared,  "almost  all  the  useful  and  necessary 
occupations  of  life  will  be  completely  under  the  control 
of  one  man.  No  one  between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and 
fifty  can  tan  your  leather,  make  your  shoes,  grind  your 
grain,  shoe  your  horse,  lay  your  plough,  make  your 
wagon,  repair  your  harness,  superintend  your  farm, 
procure  your  salt,  or  perform  any  other  of  the  neces 
sary  vocations  of  life  (except  teachers,  preachers  and 
physicians,  and  a  very  few  others) l  without  permission 
from  the  President.  This  is  certainly  an  extraordinary 
and  dangerous  power."  The  advocates  of  the  policy 
would  have  promptly  answered  that  the  time  had 
come  when  extraordinary  efforts  were  necessary  to 


lrThe  "other"  exceptions  included  men  who  owned  twenty 
or  more  slaves,  and  the  slaves  themselves  to  the  number  of  nearly 
four  millions,  who  were  trained  in  the  industrial  arts  as  well  as  in 
agriculture. 


DISASTEOUS  INTEENAL  DISSENSION     313 

replenish  a  depleted  army,   and  that  without  them 
defeat  was  certain  in  the  near  future. 

Of  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  Ste 
phens  said  that  ' '  it  does  affect  others,  and  large  classes 
of  others,  than  spies,  traitors,  bridge-burners,  and 
disloyal  persons,"  and  that  it  threatened  every  citizen 
with  the  malignant  accusations  of  personal  enemies. 
"If  there  be  traitors,"  said  he,  "let  them  be  consti 
tutionally  arrested  and  punished"— a  plan  perfectly 
correct  in  itself,  but  which  took  no  account  of  the 
exigencies  of  war.  He  said  he  had  heard  that  one 
object  of  the  act  was  "to  control  certain  elections  and 
certain  expected  assemblages  in  North  Carolina,  to  put 
a  muzzle  upon  certain  presses,  and  a  bit  in  the  mouth 
of  certain  speakers  of  that  State.  If  this  be  so,  I 
regard  it  as  the  more  dangerous  to  public  liberty. 
The  surest  way  to  check  any  inclination  in  North  Car 
olina  to  quit  our  sisterhood,  if  any  such  really  exist,  is  to 
show  her  people  that  the  struggle  is  continued  as  it  was 
begun  for  the  maintenance  of  constitutional  liberty."  l 

He  said  that  some  doubtless  thought  it  ' '  for  the  best 
interests  of  the  country  to  have  a  dictator,"  but  that  in 
his  opinion  the  most  dangerous  and  delusive  arguments 
were  taking  this  form  :  ' i  Can  you  not  trust  the  Pres 
ident  1 "  "To  the  question  of  whether  I  would  not  or 
cannot  trust  him  with  these  high  powers  not  conferred 
by  the  Constitution,  my  answer  is  :  I  am  utterly  op 
posed  to  everything  looking  to  or  tending  toward  dic 
tatorship  in  this  country.  There  is  no  man  living  and 
not  one  of  the  illustrious  dead,  whom,  if  now  living,  I 
would  so  trust.  "  He  concluded  this  remarkable  ad 
dress  as  follows : 

1  Cleveland,  Letters  and  Speeches,  pp.  761-786. 


314  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

i  i  I  would  not  turn  on  my  heel  to  choose  between 
masters.  I  was  not  born  to  acknowledge  a  master  from 
either  the  North  or  the  South.  I  shall  never  choose 
between  candidates  for  that  office.  I  have  no  wish  or 
desire  to  live  after  the  degradation  of  my  country,  and 
have  no  intention  to  survive  its  liberties,  if  life  be  the 
necessary  sacrifice  of  their  maintenance  to  the  utmost 
of  my  ability.  As  for  myself,  give  me  liberty  as 
secured  in  the  Constitution  with  all  its  guaranties, 
amongst  which  is  the  sovereignty  of  Georgia,  or  give 
me  death. 

" Senators  and  representatives!  the  honor,  the 
rights,  the  dignity,  the  glory  of  Georgia  are  in  your 
hands  !  See  to  it,  as  faithful  sentinels  upon  the  watch- 
tower,  that  no  harm  or  detriment  come  to  any  of  those 
high  and  sacred  trusts,  while  committed  to  your 
charge." 

Cleveland's  bracketed  note  declares  that  this  utter 
ance  was  received  with  "  immense  cheers  and  ap 
plause."  No  doubt  there  was  also  prodigious  satisfac 
tion  at  Washington  when  the  reports  were  read  of  this 
speech  with  its  sensational  rhetoric,  its  attack  on  the 
adopted  policies  of  the  Confederate  government,  its 
implied  assault  on  the  Confederacy's  chief,  its  hint  of 
the  possible  secession  of  North  Carolina,  and  its  sug 
gested  threat  of  the  secession  of  Georgia  as  a  more  hon 
orable  course  than  to  bow  the  knee  to  an  alleged  new 
"  master." 

The  prompt  results  in  Georgia  were  the  "Habeas 
Corpus"  and  the  "Peace"  Eesolutions,  presented  in 
the  legislature  by  Lin  ton  Stephens,  and  adopted  by  that 
body.  The  former  set  forth  that  "all  seizures  of  the 
persons  of  the  people  by  any  officer  of  the  Confederate 
government  without  warrant,  and  all  warrants  for  that 
purpose  from  any  but  a  judicial  source"  are  "unrea- 


DISASTROUS  INTEENAL  DISSENSION     315 

sonable  and  unconstitutional"  j  that  " cases  of  arrest 
ordered  by  the  President,  Secretary  of  "War,  or  general 
officer  commanding  the  Trans-Mississippi  Military 
Department  .  .  .  and  the  whole  [Habeas  Corpus] 
act  itself  .  .  .  are  unconstitutional ;  that  in  the 
judgment  of  this  General  Assembly  the  said  act  is  a 
dangerous  assault  on  the  constitutional  power  of  the 
courts,  and  upon  the  liberty  of  the  people  ;  .  .  .  and 


"5th.  That  as  constitutional  liberty  is  the  sole 
object  which  our  people  and  our  noble  army  have,  in 
our  present  terrible  struggle  with  the  government  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  so  also  is  a  faithful  adherence  to  it  on  the 
part  of  our  own  government,  through  good  fortune  in 
arms  and  through  bad,  one  of  the  great  elements  of 
our  strength  and  our  final  success ;  because  the  con 
stant  contrast  of  constitutional  government  on  our  part 
with  the  usurpations  and  tyrannies  which  characterize 
the  government  of  our  enemy,  under  the  ever-recur 
ring  and  ever  false  plea  of  the  necessities  of  war,  will 
have  the  double  effect  of  animating  our  people  with  an 
unconquerable  zeal,  and  of  inspiring  the  people  of  the 
North  more  and  more  with  a  desire  and  determination 
to  put  an  end  to  a  contest  which  is  waged  by  their  gov 
ernment  openly  against  our  liberty,  and  as  truly  but 
more  covertly  against  their  own.'' 


The  Georgia  "  Peace  Eesolutions"  of  March,  1864, 
began  with  a  quotation  from  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  on  the  subject  of  the  derivation  of  a  govern 
ment's  "just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed,"  and  the  people's  right  to  abolish  the  old 
and  institute  a  new  government  when  their  safety  and 
happiness  required  such  action.  The  resolutions  pro 
ceeded  to  argue  the  "perfect"  right  to  separate  from 


316  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

the  Union  inalienably  belonging  to  * l  each  of  the  States, 
to  be  exercised  by  her  at  her  own  pleasure,  without 
challenge  or  resistance  from  any  other  power  whatso 
ever.  ? '  The  wrongs  of  the  Southern  States  were  recited, 
and  the  Northern  State  governments  upbraided  for  their 
Constitution-nullifying  enactments,  termed  u  personal 
liberty"  laws.  Then  followed  this  highly  interesting 
paragraph  : 

"5th.  That  the  reasons  which  justified  the  separa 
tion  when  it  took  place  have  been  vindicated  and  en 
hanced  in  force  by  the  subsequent  course  of  the 
government  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  — by  his  contemptuous  re 
jection  of  the  Confederate  commissioners  who  were 
sent  to  Washington  before  the  war,  to  settle  all  matters 
of  difference  without  a  resort  to  arms  ;  thus  evincing 
his  determination  to  have  war, — by  his  armed  occupa 
tion  of  the  territory  of  the  Confederate  States,  and  es 
pecially  by  his  treacherous  attempt  to  reinforce  his 
garrisons  in  their  midst,  after  they  had,  in  pursuance 
of  their  right,  withdrawn  their  people  and  territory 
from  the  jurisdiction  of  his  government ;  thus  render 
ing  war  a  necessity,  and  actually  inaugurating  the 
present  lamentable  war — by  his  official  denunciation 
of  the  Confederate  States  as  '  rebels '  and  '  disloyal ' 
States  for  their  rightful  withdrawal  from  their  faithless 
associate  States,  while  no  word  of  censure  has  ever 
fallen  from  him  against  those  faithless  States  who  were 
truly  ( disloyal '  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution, 
which  was  the  only  cement  to  the  Union,  and  who  were 
the  true  authors  of  all  the  wrong  and  the  mischief  of  the 
separation  ;  thus  insulting  the  innocent  by  charging 
upon  them  the  crimes  of  his  own  guilty  allies, — and 
finally  by  his  monstrous  usurpations  of  power  and  un 
disguised  repudiation  of  the  Constitution,  and  his 
mocking  scheme  of  securing  a  '  republican  ?  form  of 
government  to  sovereign  States  by  putting  nine-tenths 
of  the  people  under  the  dominion  of  one-tenth  who 


DISASTEOUS  INTEENAL  DISSENSION     317 

may  be  abject  enough  to  swear  allegiance  to  his  usur 
pation,  thus  betraying  his  design  to  subvert  true  con 
stitutionalism  in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the  South."  * 


The  resolutions  went  on  to  say  that  the  war  was  a 
a  huge  crime"  justly  chargeable  upon  the  North,  but 
that  nevertheless  it  was  the  duty  of  both  sections  to 
seek  by  all  possible  means  to  avoid  further  i(  participa 
tion  in  the  guilt  of  its  continuance  "  and  to  "  use  their 
earnest  efforts  to  put  an  end  to  this  unnatural,  un- 
Christian  and  savage  work  of  carnage."  Therefore 
the  Confederate  government  was  recommended,  * t  im 
mediately  after  signal  successes  to  our  arms,  when 
none  can  impute  its  action  to  alarm,"  to  make  the 
United  States  government  "  an  official  offer  of  peace 
on  the  basis  of  the  great  principle  declared  by  our 
fathers  in  1776,"  with  the  further  understanding  that 
the  border  States  be  left  free  to  join  the  Northern 
Union  or  the  Southern  Confederacy  as  they  might  see 
fit. 

The  opinion  was  expressed  that  this  course  on  the 
part  of  the  Confederate  government  would  1 1  weaken 
and  sooner  or  later  break  down  the  war  power  of  our 
enemy,  by  showing  to  his  people  the  justice  of  our 
cause."  The  idea  seemed  to  be  that  if  the  Northern 
masses  could  be  once  convinced  that  the  Lincoln  ad 
ministration  had  abandoned  constitutional  government 

1  Lincoln  suspended  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  as  early  as  April 
27,  1861,  but  did  not  bring  about  a  conscription  act  until  March, 
1863,  having  more  than  four  times  as  large  a  population  to  draw 
from  as  Davis  had.  The  extent  of  Lincoln's  hold  on  the  Northern 
public  seems  not  to  have  been  realized  in  the  South  and  the  strength 
of  the  Northern  anti-war  party  to  have  been  extravagantly  over 
estimated. 


318  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

and  that  the  South  was  consistently  upholding  that 
principle^  they  would  repudiate  the  former,  and  a  peace 
honorable  to  both  sections,  leaving  both  in  freedom, 
would  result.  Only  impractical  doctrinaires  could 
have  entertained  such  a  hope,  for  it  was  manifest  that 
neither  the  Northern  nor  the  Southern  masses  cared 
anything  about  constitutional  government  for  the 
moment,  and  were  interested  only  in  seeing  the  war 
brought  to  an  issue  favorable  to  their  respective  sides. 
It  was  significantly  added —  and  here  the  attack  on  the 
Davis  administration  was  but  thinly  disguised — that 
such  a  proposal  of  peace  by  the  Confederate  govern 
ment  "would  be  regretted  by  nobody  on  either  side, 
except  men  whose  importance  or  whose  gains  would  be 
diminished  by  peace,  and  men  whose  ambitious  designs 
would  need  cover  under  the  ever-recurring  plea  of  the 
necessities  of  war." 

The  resolutions  prepared  and  offered  by  Linton 
Stephens  ended  here,  but,  the  majority  of  the  legisla 
ture  being  unwilling  to  go  as  far  as  the  Stephens  party 
(who  not  without  plausible  ground  were  charged  with 
disloyalty  to  the  Confederacy),  an  amendment  was  of 
fered  and  adopted  in  the  form  of  an  added  paragraph 
to  the  resolutions,  as  follows  : 


"  8th.  That  while  the  foregoing  is  an  expression  of 
the  sentiments  of  this  General  Assembly  respecting  the 
manner  in  which  peace  should  be  sought,  we  renew  our 
pledges  of  the  resources  and  power  of  this  State  to  the 
prosecution  of  the  war,  defensive  on  our  part,  until 
peace  is  obtained  upon  just  and  honorable  terms,  and 
until  the  independence  and  nationality  of  the  Confede 
rate  States  are  established  upon  a  permanent  and  en 
during  basis." 


DISASTEOUS  INTEENAL  DISSENSION     319 

As  they  would  naturally  be  expected  to  do,  most  of 
the  Southern  newspapers  severely  criticised  Stephens' s 
address  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  and  the  resolu 
tions  which  followed  it,  as  damaging  to  the  Confeder 
acy's  cause.  Looking  back  in  1870,  Stephens  declared 
that  he  could  see  no  just  reasons  for  these  criticisms. 
He  believed  the  resolutions  i '  would  make  a  deep  im 
pression  upon  the  minds  of  all  true  friends  of  constitu 
tional  liberty"  in  the  North  and  have  an  influence 
upon  the  presidential  election  of  that  year.  "  I  then 
thought,"  he  explained,  "  and  still  think  that  if  the 
Southern  press  had  given  these  resolutions  a  cordial 
endorsement  instead  of  censuring  them,  if  all  the 
Southern  States  had  passed  the  same  or  similar  resolves, 
and  if  the  Confederate  administration  at  Eichmond 
could  have  been  brought  into  cordial  approval  and  co 
operation,  the  result  of  the  presidential  election  in  the 
Northern  States  that  year  [1864],  would  have  been  the 
displacement  of  the  Centralists  from  power  at  Wash 
ington,  and  with  that  the  final  results  of  the  war  would 
have  been  far  different  and,  in  my  judgment,  far  better 
for  the  Northern  States  as  well  as  for  the  Southern 
States."  ' 

It  may  justly  be  observed  that  these  results  depended 
on  a  formidable  "if,"  and  that  it  might  have  been 
wiser  first  to  ascertain  through  agitation  in  secret  con 
ference  whether  all  this  cooperation  could  be  obtained, 
and  to  await  the  possibility  of  concerted  action.  As  it 
was,  undoubtedly  the  effect  on  the  friends  of  State 
rights  and  of  peace  in  the  North  took  the  form  of  dis 
couragement  rather  than  encouragement ;  for  it 
evidently  led  the  war  party  there  to  the  perfectly  reason- 

1  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  II,  p.  537. 


320  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

able  belief  that  the  seeds  of  disintegration  had  already 
sprung  to  vigorous  life  in  the  Southern  Confederacy 
and  that  that  ill-starred  government  was  tottering  to 
its  fall.  Instead  of  leading  toward  such  peace  (with 
independence)  as  the  South  wanted,  it  showed  that  such 
peace  as  the  North  wanted  was  nearer  even  than  there 
had  been  good  reason  to  hope,  and  caused  a  more  ener 
getic  and  confident  prosecution  of  the  war  toward  that 
end.  The  effect  on  the  Southern  soldiery  and  people 
was  also  the  opposite  of  that  intended.  Instead  of  en 
couraging  the  troops  to  "  enter  the  fight  with  renewed 
vigor,"  and  assuring  the  people  that  their  sufferings 
and  privations  would  not  be  in  vain,  as  Stephens  sup 
posed,  it  led  them  to  fear  that  already  their  cause  was 
lost,  and  it  put  into  their  minds  the  distressing  sugges 
tion  that,  after  all,  their  reward,  if  successful,  might  be 
no  more  than  a  change  of  "  masters." 

If  Stephens  had  traitorously  desired  the  success  of 
the  Union  cause,  while  pretending  to  labor  in  the 
interests  of  the  Confederate,  he  could  not  have  hit 
upon  a  scheme  better  adapted  to  the  forwarding  of  his 
secret  purpose,  and  the  indirect  accusation  of  Ben 
jamin  H.  Hill  after  the  war  that  such  was  his  real 
object,  though  it  cruelly  wronged  the  Yice-President, 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at  altogether.  It  would  appear 
that  in  this  matter  Stephens  was  rendered  insensible 
to  actual  conditions  by  the  intensity  of  his  devotion  to 
his  chosen  political  theories.  His  love  of  State  rights, 
home  rule,  and  strictly  constitutional  government,  and 
his  passion  for  individual  liberty  (for  all  except  negro 
slaves)  blinded  his  eyes  both  to  the  necessities  of  war 
and  to  the  inevitable  consequences  of  his  chosen  course. 
It  is  due  to  him  to  add  in  this  connection  that  the 


DISASTROUS  INTERNAL  DISSENSION     321 

independence  of  the  eleven  States  of  the  Confederacy 
was  not  all  he  had  in  view.  He  dreamed  of  a  greater 
confederation  founded  on  the  Montgomery  constitu 
tion,  which  many  more  of  the  States,  perhaps  a  large 
majority, — after  the  "  Centralists  "  were  displaced  at 
Washington — might  join,  with  the  result  of  a  purged, 
perfected  and  happier  Union  than  had  yet  been  known. 
This  "higher  and  grander"  object  he  discusses  with 
some  plausibility  and  much  force  in  his  Constitutional 
View  of  the  War.1  That  he  could  seriously  have  hoped 
for  the  accession  of  any  Northern  or  Northwestern 
State  to  a  Confederacy  pledged  to  the  perpetuation 
of  slavery  is  further  evidence  of  the  curious  myopia 
restricting  his  otherwise  extended  intellectual  view 
wherever  this  subject  was  concerned.  It  is  also  evi 
dence,  strange  as  this  may  sound  to  some  ears,  of  his 
reverence  for  and  faith  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
fathers, — a  reverence  so  unbounded  and  a  faith  so  com 
plete  that  he  still  dreamed  of  successfully  calling  the 
Northern  tier  of  States  from  Maine  to  California  to  a 
repentant  allegiance  to  that  repudiated  section  of  it 
which  recognized  the  institution  of  slavery  and  pro 
vided  for  the  inter-State  recovery  of  escaped  bondmen. 
A  significant  result  of  Stephens' s  speech  before  the 
Georgia  legislature  and  the  resolutions  of  that  body  in 
March  was  Sherman's  message  to  the  Confederacy's 
Vice-President  and  to  Georgia's  governor  in  Sep 
tember.  After  the  invader  had  taken  Atlanta  on 
September  2,  1864,  and  while  preparing  to  continue 
his  march  across  the  State  to  Savannah,  he  sent  "a 
hearty  invitation  "  (as  he  himself  said  in  his  dispatch 
to  General  Halleck  on  September  15th)  to  both  the 

1  Vol.  II,  pp.  524-531. 


322  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

dignitaries  named  to  visit  him  and  discuss  the  ques 
tion  of  a  plan  of  peace,  apparently  supposing  that 
both,  judging  from  all  that  he  had  heard,  would  be 
ready  to  consider  the  terms  of  a  separate  peace  for  their 
State.  Governor  Brown,  of  Georgia,  as  well  as  Gov 
ernor  Yance,  of  North  Carolina,  had  come  into  con 
flict  with  the  authority  of  the  Confederate  government, 
and  the  former's  critical  attitude  as  well  as  that  of 
Stephens  had  influenced  sentiment  in  the  State.  In 
the  course  of  his  message  to  the  legislature  in  the 
previous  March,  Brown  had  said  : 


"  Those  who  are  unfriendly  to  State  sovereignty  and 
desire  to  consolidate  all  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
Confederate  government,  hoping  to  promote  their  un 
dertakings  by  operating  on  the  fears  of  the  timid, 
after  each  new  aggression  upon  the  constitutional 
rights  of  the  States,  fill  the  newspaper  presses  with 
the  cry  of  conflict,  and  warn  the  people  to  beware  of 
those  who  seek  to  maintain  their  constitutional  rights 
as  agitators  or  partisans  who  may  embarrass  the  Con 
federate  government  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 
Let  not  the  people  be  deceived  by  this  false  clamor. 
It  is  the  same  cry  .  .  .  which  the  usurpers  of 
power  have  ever  raised  against  those  who  rebuke  their 
encroachments  and  refuse  to  yield  to  their  aggressions. 
.  .  .  Georgia  stands  ready  at  all  times  to  do  her 
whole  duty  to  the  cause  and  to  the  Confederacy  ;  but 
while  she  does  this,  she  will  never  cease  to  require 
that  her  constitutional  rights  be  respected  and  the 
liberties  of  her  people  preserved."  l 

In  other  words,  Georgia,  under  Governor  Brown, 
would  bow  to  the  decrees  of  the  Confederate  govern- 

1  Fielder,  Life  of  Joseph  E.  Brown,  p.  309. 


DISASTBOUS  INTEENAL  DISSENSION     323 

ment — even  in  the  midst  of  a  great  crisis — only  so  far 
as  she  saw  fit.     Put  to  the  real  test,  all  the  other 
Southern  States  would  no  doubt  have  asserted  as  em 
phatically  the  individual  sovereignty  which  all  claimed. 
The  Southern  Confederacy  died  of  many  diseases,  and^\ 
not  the  least  of  these  was  the  very  principle  of  State/ 
sovereignty  which  caused  it  to  come  into  existence.     - 

Stephens' s  written  answer  to  the  agent,  Mr.  William 
King,  who  brought  Sherman's  message,  was  charac 
teristic.  He  said  that  there  was  no  sacrifice  "  short  of 
principle  and  honor"  he  would  not  be  willing  to  make 
in  order  to  end  this  " fratricidal  war"  ;  but  that  the 
entire  absence  of  any  power  on  his  part  to  enter  into 
negotiations,  and  the  like  absence  of  any  such  power 
on  the  part  of  the  invader  himself,  so  far  as  appeared 
from  his  message,  necessarily  rendered  an  acceptance 
of  the  invitation  impossible.  ' '  In  communicating  this 
to  General  Sherman,"  Stephens  wrote  further,  "you 
may  also  say  to  him  that  if  he  is  of  opinion  that  there 
is  any  prospect  of  our  agreeing  upon  terms  of  adjust 
ment  to  be  submitted  to  the  action  of  our  respective 
governments,  even  though  he  has  no  power  to  act  in 
advance  in  the  premises,  and  will  make  this  known  to 
me  in  some  formal  and  authoritative  manner,  I  would 
most  cheerfully  and  willingly,  with  consent  of  our 
authorities,  accede  to  his  request  thus  manifested,  and 
enter  with  all  earnestness  upon  the  responsible  and 
arduous  task  of  restoring  peace  and  harmony  to  the 
country,  upon  principles  of  honor,  right  and  justice  to 
all  parties." 

Governor  Brown's  reply  was  brief  and  to  the  point, 
vindicating  the  honor  of  Georgia  as  a  confederate  of  the 
seceded  States : 


324  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

"Say  to  General  Sherman  that  Georgia  has  entered 
into  a  confederation  with  her  Southern  sisters  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  same  sovereignty  of  each,  sever 
ally,  which  she  claims  for  herself,  and  her  public  faith 
thus  pledged  will  never  be  violated  by  me.  Come 
weal  or  come  woe,  the  State  of  Georgia  shall  never,  by 
my  consent,  withdraw  from  the  confederation  in  dis 
honor.  She  will  never  make  separate  terms  with  the 
enemy  which  may  free  her  territory  from  invasion  and 
leave  her  confederates  in  the  lurch. "  1 

So  Sherman  marched  on  to  the  sea  (practically  with 
out  opposition),  devastating  a  path  from  forty  to  sixty 
miles  wide  and  inflicting  damage,  according  to  his  own 
account,  to  the  amount  of  $100,000,000,  four-fifths  of 
which,  as  he  declared,  was  "  simple  waste  and  destruc 
tion.  ' '  Could  Governor  Brown  have  saved  the  country 
below  Atlanta  from  all  this  by  agreeing  to  a  separate 
peace  f  At  any  rate,  he  thought  so,  and  he  disdained 
the  temptation,  as  the  united  sentiment  of  the  State 
would  have  demanded  that  he  should  do. 

1  Fielder,  Life  of  Joseph  E.  Brown,  p.  311. 


CHAPTEE  XVI 

THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE 

WITH  the  beginning  of  the  year  1865  the  collapse  of 
the  Confederacy  was  clearly  in  sight.  Sherman  had 
virtually  crushed  opposition  in  the  far  South  and 
Lee V  army  in  Virginia  was  weak  and  staggering,  like 
a  starved  and  wounded  man,  as  a  result  of  masterly 
but  prolonged  and  ceaseless  efforts  to  protect  Rich 
mond  from  seizure  by  the  overwhelming  forces  under 
Grant.  All  attempts  to  obtain  foreign  recognition  had 
failed.  The  Confederacy's  financial  resources  were 
exhausted.  Semi-starvation  faced  the  army,  and  even 
the  citizens  at  many  points.  The  people  were  dis 
couraged,  and  many  soldiers  were  deserting  a  hopeless 
cause.  Yet  Stephens  still  urged  a  return  to  constitu 
tional  government  within  the  Confederacy's  limits  as 
the  one  and  complete  panacea  for  all  these  ills.  He 
"  still  believed  that  by  an  entire  change  in  the  policy 
of  the  administration  the  success  of  the  cause  might 
yet  be  secured. ' ' 

This  led  to  his  speech  in  January  before  the  Con 
federate  Senate,  in  which  he  consistently  argued  his 
position  and  produced  a  visible  effect  upon  that  body, 
so  long  out  of  accord  with  the  Davis  administra 
tion,  the  accumulation  of  disasters  inevitably  lead 
ing  to  accusations,  charges  and  counter  charges  be 
tween  the  different  branches  of  the  government.  A 
bill  still  further  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 


326  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

having  passed  the  House  and  come  before  the  Senate, 
the  vote  on  it  was  a  tie.  Announcing  this  result  from 
the  chair,  Stephens  stated  that  it  was  his  duty  to  cast 
the  deciding  vote,  but  before  doing  so  he  desired  to 
give  his  reasons  for  opposing  the  measure.1  The  ques 
tion  of  his  right  to  do  this  was  raised,  and  a  senator 
proposed  to  change  his  ballot  so  as  to  settle  the  matter 
without  any  vote  or  expression  from  the  presiding 
officer.  Stephens  ruled  that  a  vote  could  not  be  changed 
after  the  result  was  announced.  An  appeal  was  taken, 
the  decision  of  the  chair  set  aside,  and  the  Senate  ad 
journed.  The  object  of  this  action,  which  greatly  in 
censed  the  Yice-President,  was  to  cut  off  a  speech 
which  many  no  doubt  believed  would  be  damaging  to 
the  interests  of  the  Confederacy.  Stephens  caused  the 
retiring  senators  to  be  informed  that  he  would  at  once 
resign,  and  he  then  "left  the  Senate  chamber  never 
intending  to  reenter  it."  The  next  day  he  received  a 
resolution  unanimously  passed  by  the  Senate  request 
ing  him  to  address  that  body  in  secret  session  on 
the  condition  of  affairs.  Not  his  right  to  speak, 
but  the  propriety  of  a  public  speech  from  him  that 
would  be  reported  in  the  newspapers  was  what  had 
been  questioned. 

Yielding  to  urgent  solicitation,  Stephens  returned  to 
the  Senate  chamber  and,  without  resuming  the  chair, 
addressed  the  assembly  from  the  floor.  The  burden 
of  this  speech,  which  was  not  reported,  was  that 
the  Confederacy's  policy  should  be  "  speedily  and 
thoroughly  changed,"  2  in  the  matter  of  conscription, 
impressments,  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas 

1  Journal  of  the  Confederate  Congress,  Vol,  IV,  pp.  385-7. 

2  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,  Vol.  II,  p.  587. 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  327 

corpus,  etc.  It  was  advised  that  proclamation  be 
made  putting  an  end  to  all  compulsory  methods,  and 
it  was  confidently  predicted  that  such  a  course  would 
in  thirty  days  bring  more  recruits  to  the  army  than 
conscription  had  brought  from  the  beginning.  Ste 
phens  also  objected  to  the  policy  of  holding  posts 
against  besieging  armies,  and  of  engaging  in  pitched 
battles,  since  it  was  impossible  to  match  the  enemy 
in  outfit  and  numbers,  and  therefore,  "by  attrition 
alone  "  the  latter  could  ultimately  prevail — a  result  that 
had  virtually  been  accomplished  already.  There  was 
point  in  his  contention  that  the  leading  object  now 
should  be  "to  keep  an  army  in  the  field,  to  keep  the 
standard  up"  wherever  possible,  while  avoiding  the 
exhaustion  of  direct  battle,  except  when  there  were 
decided  advantages  in  favor  of  the  Confederates.  This 
very  policy,  however,  the  Southern  generals,  driven  by 
necessity,  had  long  followed  to  a  large  extent.  The  case 
of  the  capital  city  was  chiefly  in  Stephens' s  thought, 
but  he  states  that  he  left  his  hearers  to  draw  their 
inferences.  To  Davis  alone  he  spoke  fully  on  this 
point,  and  the  response  was  that  "the  abandonment 
of  Eichmond  would  be  a  virtual  abandonment  of  the 
cause. " 

Being  requested  to  put  his  views  in  the  form  of 
resolutions,  Stephens  produced  what  amounted  to  an 
other  series  of  futile  propositions  suggesting  peace  but 
not  offering  the  concessions  without  which  it  was  now 
clear  that  it  would  never  be  granted.  It  was  re 
solved  that  the  President  of  the  Confederate  States  be 
requested  to  permit  three  persons  appointed  by  the 
House  of  Eepresentatives  to  pass  through  the  lines 
and  obtain  an  informal  interview  with  the  Washing- 


328  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

ton  authorities,  or  their  representatives,  with  a  view 
of  inaugurating  negotiations  for  peace  on  the  basis  of 
the  sovereignty  and  independence  of  the  States  at  war. 
"  Should  this  effort  fail,"  concluded  the  resolutions, 
"  we  shall  have  the  consolation  of  knowing  that  we, 
in  our  high  and  responsible  trusts,  have  done  our 
duty  .  .  .  and  the  rejection  of  this  overture  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States  will  afford  addi 
tional  evidence  that  he  is  waging  this  unnatural  war 
not  for  the  good  of  his  country  but  for  purposes  of 
the  most  unholy  ambition."  Writing  to  his  brother, 
Stephens  said  that,  in  urging  on  the  Senate  the 
propriety  of  such  an  overture,  he  asserted  that  ' '  we 
had  ten  friends  in  the  North  to  one  in  any  other  part 
of  the  world."  He  explained  that  he  did  not  mean 
"men  who  were  in  favor  of  disunion,  but  men  who 
really  had  the  same  interests  at  stake  in  the  contest 
that  we  have — the  preservation  of  State  rights  and 
Constitutional  liberty." 

It  was  at  this  stage  of  affairs  that  a  distinguished 
supporter  of  the  Washington  government  appeared  in 
Eichmond.  This  was  Francis  P.  Blair,  Sr.,  who  had 
previously  been  on  friendly  terms  with  Davis,  and 
whose  son,  Montgomery  Blair,  was  now  in  Lincoln's 
cabinet.  He  came  to  the  Confederate  capital  "with 
the  consent,  though  not  by  the  request "  l  of  Lincoln, 
sought  a  consultation  with  Davis,  returned  to  Wash 
ington,  again  appeared  in  Eichmond,  again  talked  pri 
vately  with  Davis,  and  departed  for  Washington.3  On 

1  Greeley's  American  Conflict,  Vol.  II,  Chap.  30. 

2  Blair  stated  in  his  report  th?,t  the  first  question  he  asked,  on 
the    answer    to  which    he    believed   everything    depended,    was 
"whether  he  [Davis]  had  any  commitments  with  European  pow- 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  329 

the  day  after  Blair's  final  departure  Davis  invited 
Stephens  to  a  private  interview  and  told  him  that  the 
unofficial  commissioner  from  Washington  had  sug 
gested  a  course  by  which  a  suspension  of  hostilities 
might  be  effected.  l  i  This  was  to  be  done  by  a  secret 
military  convention  between  the  belligerents,"  wrote 
Stephens  five  years  later,1  "embracing  another  object 
which  was  the  maintenance  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  in 
the  prevention  of  the  establishment  of  the  then  pro 
jected  empire  in  Mexico  by  France."  Nicolay  and 
Hay  unjustly  describe  it  as  a  proposal  for  "  a  joint  fili 
bustering  foray,"  and  declare  that  it  could  never  have 
been  endorsed  by  Lincoln,  whose  "  whole  interest  in 
Mr.  Blair's  mission  was  in  the  despondency  of  the  rebel 
leaders  which  it  disclosed."  2  It  is  surprising  that  the 
Confederate  authorities  did  not  promptly  realize  that 
this  alone  was  the  real  object  in  view  at  Washington. 
Blair's  report  indicates  that  there  was  reserve 
on  the  part  of  Davis  and  that  it  was  necessary  to 
promise  him  that  this  time  he  would  not  suffer  from 
the  crooked  diplomacy  of  Seward,  but  would  deal  with 
the  President  himself.  "Mr.  Seward,"  said  Blair, 
"would  betray  any  man,  no  matter  what  his  obligations 
to  him,  if  he  stood  in  the  way  of  his  selfish  and  ambi 
tious  schemes"  ;  but  "this  matter,  if  entered  into  at 
all,  must  be  with  Mr.  Lincoln  himself."  s  Doubtless 
it  was  partly  this  promise,  thus  made  by  Blair,  that 


era  which  wonld  control  his  conduct  in  making  arrangements  with 
the  United  States,"  and  that  Davis  answered  "in  the  most  de 
cisive  manner  that  there  were  none,  that  he  had  no  commitments." 
— Nicolay  and  Hay,  Vol.  X,  p.  96. 

1  A  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  II,  p.  591. 

2  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Vol.  X,  p.  108. 
*Ibid.,  Vol.  X,  p.  105. 


330  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

induced  Lincoln  to  attend  the  Hampton  Roads  Con 
ference  in  person. 

When  called  into  consultation  with  Davis,  Stephens 
asked  if  Blair  really  represented  the  government  at 
Washington,  and  was  told  that  he  had  disclaimed 
speaking  by  authority,  but  had  declared  his  belief  that 
the  administration  would  be  willing  to  enter  into 
the  arrangement  proposed.  The  attempt  of  the  Con 
federate  States  to  establish  a  separate  independence 
would  certainly  fail,  urged  Blair,  and  the  proposed 
joint  expedition  into  Mexico  would  be  the  means  of 
the  ultimate  and  amicable  restoration  of  the  Union. 
The  Confederate  leaders  might  have  doubts  as  they 
listened  to  so  extraordinary  a  suggestion,  but  their 
position  was  similar  to  that  of  drowning. men  catching 
at  straws.  The  fact  that  they  listened  at  all  was  a 
confession  of  hopelessness,  and  it  seems  not  to  have 
occurred  to  them  that  to  make  sure  of  such  a  confession 
was  Lincoln's  object  in  permitting  the  mission.  In 
the  consultation  with  Stephens,  Davis  submitted  two 
letters  that  had  passed  between  Lincoln  and  himself 
through  the  medium  of  Blair  (the  same  that  appear  in 
Lincoln's  message  on  the  Hampton  Roads  Conference), 
his  own  expressing  a  desire  for  peace  between  "  the 
two  countries  "  and  Lincoln's  a  desire  for  the  restora 
tion  of  peace  to  "our  common  country."  Stephens 
states  that  he  advised  that  the  Confederate  government 
go  at  least  as  far  as  to  enter  into  a  conference,  and  that 
it  be  between  Davis  and  Lincoln  personally.  But 
Davis  was  opposed  to  this,  preferring  to  send  three 
commissioners.  When  Stephens  found  later  that  he 
had  been  appointed  as  one  of  these,  with  Judge 
Campbell  and  R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  he  objected  on  the 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  331 

ground  that,  being  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate, 
his  absence  would  be  noticed  and  a  secret  mission 
would  thus  receive  too  much  publicity ;  but  he  yielded 
to  argument  and  agreed  to  undertake  the  journey. 

This  interview  between  Davis  and  Stephens  was  the 
first  that  had  occurred  for  a  long  while,  owing  to  the 
strained  relations  following  the  Vice-President's  at 
tacks  on  the  administration.  Davis  was  with  difficulty 
prevailed  on  to  appoint  Stephens,  and  he  finally 
agreed  to  do  so  only  because  he  was  persuaded  that 
it  would  be  good  policy.  Such  is  the  testimony  of 
Benjamin  H.  Hill,  who  in  the  spring  of  1874  read  a 
paper  before  the  Atlanta  branch  of  the  Southern  His 
torical  Society  on  the  "Unwritten  History  of  the 
Hampton  Eoads  Commission. ' '  Hill  states  that  he  and 
the  other  advisers  of  Davis  urged  that  Stephens  be  sent 
on  the  mission  because  he  was  the  recognized  head  of 
the  peace  party,  and  the  effect  within  the  Confederacy 
would  be  useful  even  if  the  conference  failed.  As  to 
the  advisability  of  the  meeting  itself,  Hill  urged  that 
the  enemies  of  Davis  * '  were  clamorous  in  making  the 
people  believe  that  he  was  actually  opposed  to  it  [any 
movement  toward  an  honorable  peace]  and  were  by 
such  means  causing  desertions  from  the  army  and  di 
visions  among  our  people,  and  something  must  be  done 
to  silence  these  clamors  ;  that,  while  there  was  danger 
in  the  impression  made  on  the  minds  of  the  enemy, 
yet  to  make  no  effort,  and  especially  to  oppose  an  effort 
when  proposed  by  the  malcontents  in  our  midst,  would 
continue  to  weaken  our  army  and  divide  our  people, 
and  this  would  be  by  far  the  greater  evil  of  the 
two." 

It  appears  from  Hill's  paper,  and  other  indications 


332  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

bear  him  out,  that  Davis  consented  to  the  Hampton 
Eoads  Conference  partly  in  order  to  silence  opposition 
within  Confederate  boundaries  and  partly  because  he 
".had  some  expectation  that  an  armistice,  at  least, 
might  be  secured,  during  which  discussion  might 
spring  up  that  would  result  in  a  final  termination  of 
the  struggle."  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  seriously 
entertained  the  Blair  suggestion  of  the  possibility  of  a 
joint  expedition  of  the  belligerents  into  Mexico. 

The  Hampton  Eoads  Conference,  at  which  the  North 
was  represented  by  Lincoln  and  Seward  and  the  South 
by  Stephens,  Campbell  and  Hunter,  took  place  on 
February  3, 1865,  in  the  saloon  of  the  steamer  which  had 
brought  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  Fortress 
Monroe.  The  discussion  was  preceded  by  friendly 
reminiscences  of  former  acquaintance  and  association, 
Lincoln  responding  to  Stephens' s  remarks  in  a  "  cheer 
ful  and  cordial  manner."  It  is  even  related  that 
Lincoln  was  ready  with  his  inevitable  joke.  Observ 
ing  the  slender  Stephens  removing  his  great  coat  and 
muffler,  he  remarked  that  the  Georgian  was  the 
u  smallest  nubbin  to  come  out  of  so  much  husk  "  that 
he  had  ever  beheld.  Stephens  does  not  mention  this 
in  his  own  account,  but  he  refers  to  a  characteristic 
anecdote  told  by  Lincoln  during  the  conference. 
When  the  evils  of  immediate  emancipation  were 
adverted  to — in  case  that  policy  should  be  pressed — 
especially  the  sufferings  of  the  women  and  children 
and  the  old  and  infirm  slaves  who  would  not  be  able  to 
support  themselves,  Lincoln  admitted  the  difficulty, 
but,  in  order  not  to  commit  himself  directly  while  yet 
suggesting  his  individual  view,  he  said  that  at  the 
moment  he  felt  at  liberty  only  to  tell  the  story  of  the 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  333 

Illinois  farmer  and  his  hogs. 1  The  successful  policy  of 
this  farmer,  as  the  story  revealed,  was  not  to  pen  his 
hogs  and  provide  food  for  them,  but  to  turn  them  out 
and  "let  'em  root!"  This  was  precisely  the  policy 
that  finally  prevailed,  although  great  numbers  of 
idling  negroes  long  waited  in  vain  for  the  "  forty  acres 
and  a  mule"  that  had  been  promised  them  by  irre 
sponsible  carpetbaggers. 

A  full  report  of  this  historic  conference  is  given  by 
Stephens  in  his  Constitutional  View  of  the  War,*  an  out 
line  of  which  may  appropriately  be  presented  here. 
After  the  references  to  former  friendly  association, 
Stephens  asked  :  "  Well,  Mr.  President,  is  there  no 
way  of  putting  an  end  to  the  present  trouble  and 
bringing  about  a  restoration  of  the  general  good  feel 
ing  then  existing  between  the  different  States  and 
sections  of  the  country  ?  "  Seward  here  interposed  to 
remind  the  Confederates  that  the  conference  was  to  be 
informal,  verbal,  with  no  written  report  of  what  was 
said — (an  obligation  from  which  Stephens  was  of 
course  released  when  he  wrote  his  history  five  years 
after  the  war).  This  being  agreed  to,  Lincoln  replied, 
in  substance,  that  there  was  but  one  way  he  knew  of 
and  that  was  for  those  who  "were  resisting  the  laws 
of  the  Union"  to  cease  that  resistance.  "But,"  said 
Stephens,  "is  there  no  other  question  that  might 
divert  the  attention  of  both  parties  .  .  .  until  the 
passions  on  both  sides  might  cool,  when  they  would  be 
in  a  better  temper  to  come  to  an  amicable  adjustment, 
.  .  .  no  Continental  question  which  might  thus 
temporarily  engage  their  attention?" 

1  Vol.  n,  p.  615. 

2  Vol.  II,  pp.  599-619. 


334  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

Comprehending  the  allusion  at  once,  Lincoln 
replied  :  "  I  suppose  you  refer  to  something  that  Mr. 
Blair  has  said.  Now,  it  is  proper  to  state  at  the  be 
ginning  that  whatever  he  said  was  of  his  own  accord 
and  without  the  least  authority  from  me." 1  He 
added  that  he  had  always  been  ready  to  listen  to  any 
proposition  looking  toward  peace,  but  that  with  him 
the  restoration  of  the  Union  was  a  sine  qua  non. 
Stephens  understood  this  statement  to  mean  that 
Lincoln  was  unwilling  to  enter  into  any  arrangement 
on  the  line  suggested  "  without  a  previous  pledge  that 
the  Union  was  to  be  ultimately  restored,"  and  pro 
ceeded  to  reply:  "But,  suppose,  Mr.  President,  a 
line  of  policy  should  be  suggested,  which,  if  adopted, 
would  most  probably  lead  to  a  restoration  of  the  Union 
without  further  bloodshed,  would  it  not  be  highly  ad 
visable  to  act  on  it,  even  without  the  absolute  pledge 
of  ultimate  restoration  being  required  to  be  first 
given?  Is  there  not  now  such  a  Continental  question 
in  which  all  the  parties  engaged  in  our  present  war  feel 
a  deep  and  similar  interest?  I  allude,  of  course,  to 
Mexico  and  what  is  called  the  l Monroe  Doctrine,'  the 
principles  of  which  are  directly  involved  in  the  con 
test  now  waging  there."  He  added  that  from  all  ac 
counts  it  was  evident  that  the  Northern  people  and  their 
government  were  opposed  to  the  establishment  of  an 
empire  in  Mexico  by  France.  Both  Lincoln  and 
Seward  replied  that  this  was  so.  Then,  said  Stephens, 

1  The  Confederate  leaders  seem  to  have  been  no  match  for  Lincoln 
in  the  art  of  masked  design.  Ellis  P.  Oberholtzer  tells  the  whole 
story  when  in  his  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  359,  he  observes  that  Blair 
1 '  was  provided  with  a  passport  and  secured  interviews  .  .  . 
which  were  edifying  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  although  he  shrewdly  dis 
claimed  all  responsibility  for  the  mission. ' ' 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  335 

"  could  not  both  parties  in  our  contest  come  to  an 
agreement  to  postpone  their  present  strife,  by  a 
suspension  of  hostilities  between  themselves,  until  this 
principle  is  maintained  in  behalf  of  Mexico, "  and 
would  this  not  i  i  almost  inevitably  lead  to  a  peaceful 
and  harmonious  solution  of  their  own  difficulties?" 
Lincoln  earnestly  replied  that  he  * i  could  entertain  no 
proposition  for  ceasing  active  military  operations, 
which  was  not  based  upon  a  pledge  first  given  for  the 
ultimate  restoration  of  the  Union."  He  had  "  con 
sidered  the  question  of  an  armistice  fully,"  and  he 
"  could  not  give  his  consent  to  any  proposition  of  that 
sort  on  the  basis  suggested."  The  only  possible  set 
tlement  was  "the  reestablishment  of  the  national 
authority  throughout  the  land." 

This  apparently  put  an  end  to  the  conference  on  the 
proposed  lines,  as  the  Confederate  commissioners  "  had 
no  authority  to  give  any  such  pledge,  even  if  inclined 
to  do  so."  It  had  been  agreed  that,  failing  to  secure  an 
armistice,  the  commissioners  would  endeavor  to  ascer 
tain  on  what  terms  the  Washington  government  would 
be  willing  to  end  the  war.  So  Judge  Campbell  now 
asked  what  was  the  plan  on  the  nationalist  side  for 
a  restoration  of  the  Union.  Thereupon  Seward  sug 
gested  that  a  reply  to  this  inquiry  might  well  be  post 
poned  until  Stephens  had  more  fully  developed  his  (or 
Blair's)  proposition.  This,  after  Lincoln  had  appar 
ently  closed  the  subject,  surprised  the  Confederates,  but 
Stephens  gladly  seized  the  opportunity  to  speak 
further.  He  dwelt  on  the  grandeur  of  the  project 
and  expressed  the  hope  that  the  temporary  union  of 
North  and  South  in  behalf  of  home  rule  in  Mexico  and 
against  foreign  aggression  might  lead  to  a  larger  rec- 


336  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

ognition  of  the  right  of  home  rule  in  the  States  of  the 
late  American  Union,  and  thus  to  an  ultimate  settle 
ment  not  antagonistic  to  the  ardent  Southern  desire  for 
independence.  The  subject  evidently  occupied  his 
thought  and  engaged  his  imagination  to  a  much  larger 
extent  than  was  true  of  the  other  Confederate  commis 
sioners  who  had  not  fondly  dreamed,  as  he  had,  of  a 
greater  Confederacy,  not  confined  to  the  slave  States, 
based  on  the  Montgomery  convention's  revision  of  the 
.Constitution  of  1787.  His  earnestness  and  persistence 
were  pathetic  in  their  hopelessness. 

At  the  conclusion  of  Stephens' s  remarks  Mr.  Hunter 
made  the  important  announcement  that  there  was  not 
unanimity  in  the  South  on  the  subject  of  undertaking 
the  maintenance  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  that  it 
was  not  probable  that  the  Confederate  government 
would  agree  to  send  any  portion  of  its  army  into 
Mexico.  Stephens  adds  that  he  had  previously  agreed 
with  the  other  commissioners  that  they  could  not 
promise  this.  His  course  in  urging  the  project  on 
Lincoln  was,  therefore,  inconsistent,  as  Nicolay  and 
Hay  critically  observe.  But  Stephens  doubtless  hoped 
and  believed  that  if  Lincoln  and  the  North  could  be 
persuaded,  Davis  and  the  South — in  view  of  the  Con 
federacy's  gloomy  prospects — could  also  be  persuaded. 

Lincoln  repeated  his  declaration  that  no  arrange 
ments  were  possible  that  did  not  involve  a  restoration 
of  the  Union,  and  Judge  Campbell  returned  to  his  in 
quiry  as  to  how  the  restoration  was  to  take  place,  sup 
posing  the  Confederates  should  consent.  "  By  dis 
banding  their  armies,"  said  Lincoln,  "  and  permitting 
the  national  authorities  to  resume  their  functions." 
Judge  Campbell  suggested  that  in  that  event,  stipula- 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  337 

tions  or  assurances  of  some  sort  would  be  necessary. 
Stephens  asked  if  the  seceded  States  would  be  admitted 
to  representation  in  Congress,  and  "Mr.  Lincoln  very 
promptly  replied  that  his  own  individual  opinion  was 
that  they  ought  to  be  j  he  also  thought  they  would  be, 
but  he  could  not  enter  into  any  stipulation.  His  own 
opinion  was  that  when  resistance  ceased  and  the  na 
tional  authority  was  recognized,  the  Southern  States 
would  be  immediately  restored  to  their  practical  rela 
tions  to  the  Union. "  Stephens  urged  the  importance 
of  some  understanding  on  this  point,  but  Lincoln  re 
plied  that  he  could  not  enter  into  agreements  of  any 
sort  l  i  with  parties  in  arms  against  the  government. ' ' 
Then,  said  Mr.  Hunter,  there  could  be  no  stipulations, 
no  treaty, — " nothing  but  unconditional  submission.'7 
Seward  observed  that  no  such  words  as  "  unconditional 
submission ' '  had  been  used.  Hunter  repeated  that  it 
amounted  to  that — "  unconditional  submission  to  the 
mercy  of  the  conquerors."  Seward  replied  that  they 
were  '  '  not  conquerors  further  than  that  they  required 
obedience  to  the  laws,"  and  that  the  rights  of  the 
Southern  -States  would  be  secured  by  the  Constitution. 
But,  said  Hunter,  "  you  make  no  agreement  that  these 
rights  will  be  so  held  and  secured."  At  this  point  — 

1  i  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  so  far  as  the  Confiscation 
Acts  and  other  penal  acts  were  concerned,  their  en 
forcement  was  entirely  with  him,  and  on  that  point  he 
was  perfectly  willing  to  be  full  and  explicit,  and  on  his 
assurance  perfect  reliance  might  be  placed.  He  would 
exercise  the  power  of  the  Executive  with  the  utmost 
liberality.  He  went  on  to  say  that  he  would  be  willing 
to  be  taxed  to  remunerate  the  Southern  people  for  their 
slaves.  He  believed  the  people  of  the  North  were  as 
responsible  for  slavery  as  the  people  of  the  South,  and 


338  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

if  the  war  should  then  cease,  with  the  voluntary  aboli 
tion  of  slavery  by  the  States/  he  would  be  in  favor, 
individually,  of  the  government  paying  a  fair  indemnity 
for  the  loss  to  the  owners.  He  said  he  believed  this 
feeling  had  an  extensive  existence  in  the  North.  He 
knew  some  who  were  in  favor  of  an  appropriation  as 
high  as  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars  for  this  pur 
pose.  'I  could  mention  persons,'  said  he,  i whose 
names  would  astonish  you,  who  are  willing  to  do  this, 
if  the  war  shall  now  cease  without  further  expense,  and 
with  the  abolition  of  slavery  as  stated.7  But  on  this 
subject,  he  said,  he  could  give  no  assurance,  enter  into 
no  stipulation.  He  merely  expressed  his  own  views 
and  what  he  believed  to  be  the  views  of  others  on  the 
subject." 


To  this  Seward  added,  as  Stephens  states,  that  the 
Northern  people  were  weary  of  the  war  and  "he  be 
lieved  they  would  be  willing  to  pay  as  an  indemnity 
for  the  slaves  what  would  be  required  to  continue  the 
war." 

The  conversation  had  lasted  about  four  hours  and 
now  there  was  a  pause,  "as  if  all  felt  that  the  inter 
view  should  close."  Stephens  rose  saying  that  appar 
ently  the  mission  would  be  entirely  fruitless  unless 
something  could  be  accomplished  in  the  matter  of 
exchange  of  prisoners.  Lincoln  replied  that  he  was 
in  favor  of  bringing  about  an  agreement  on  this  long 

1  In  speaking  a  few  minutes  before  he  had  advised  Stephens  to  go 
to  Georgia,  induce  Governor  Brown  to  recall  the  State's  troops 
from  the  war,  convene  the  legislature  and  ratify  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  " prospectively,  so  as  to  take  effect,  say  in  five  years." 
He  added  :  "  Such  a  ratification  would  be  valid  in  my  opinion. 
.  .  .  Your  people  must  be  convinced  now  that  slavery  is 
doomed  .  .  .  and  the  best  course  for  your  public  men  to  pur 
sue  would  be  to  adopt  such  a  policy  as  will  avoid  as  far  as  possible 
the  evils  of  immediate  emancipation."  Vol.  II,  p.  614. 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  339 

deferred  question,  but  referred  the  commissioners  to 
General  Grant  in  whose  hands  he  was  willing  to  place 
the  whole  matter.  On  their  return  to  City  Point  the 
Confederate  commissioners  took  up  the  subject  with 
General  Grant,  with  the  happy  result  of  a  general 
exchange  soon  afterward.  The  hopelessness  of  the 
Confederate  leaders  being  now  made  evident  and  the 
war  being  nearly  at  an  end,  the  Federals  could  well 
afford  to  release  the  long  detained  Confederate  prison 
ers  and  secure  the  return  of  their  own  captive  soldiers 
in  exchange.  At  parting  Stephens  expressed  the  wish 
that  Lincoln  would  reconsider  the  question  of  an  armis 
tice  on  the  basis  suggested.  Shaking  hands  in  fare 
well,  the  latter  said  :  "  Well,  Stephens,  I  do  not  think 
my  mind  will  change,  but  I  will  reconsider.'7  Thus 
ended  the  Hampton  Eoads  Conference,  wherein,  from 
the  testimony  of  a  Southern  witness,  it  appears  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  revealed  capability  of  great  sym 
pathy  for  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  in  their 
coming  difficulties,  particularly  in  connection  with  the 
distressing  negro  problem. 

It  is  said  that  on  the  day  after  the  conference 
he  submitted  to  his  cabinet  the  question  of  compensa 
ting  the  slave  owners,  and  that  all  except  Seward 
objected,  although  he  argued  that  a  hundred  days 
more  of  war  would  cost  as  much  as  he  proposed  to  give 
the  slave  owners  in  order  to  bring  about  peace.1  That 
Lincoln  was  inclined  toward  compensated  emancipa 
tion  from  the  outset  as  the  least  costly  method  of  ter 
minating  the  war,  and  this  because  he  did  not  under 
stand  how  intense  was  the  Southern  desire  for 

1  Henry  Watterson,  Compromises  of  Life,  chapter  on  Lincoln, 
pp.  165-6. 


340  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

independence  irrespective  of  the  slavery  question, 
appears  from  his  recommendation  to  Congress  on 
March  6,  1862;  and  that  the  subject  was  still  in  his 
mind  is  established  by  Stephens' s  account  of  the 
Hampton  Eoads  Conference.  But  even  if  the  Confed 
erate  commissioners  had  been  authorized  to  accept 
such  a  proposition  at  the  price  of  yielding  independ 
ence  and  returning  to  the  Union,  Lincoln  "could 
give  no  assurance,"  as  he  told  Stephens,  and  it  may 
well  be  doubted  whether  he  could  have  prevailed  on 
Congress  even  to  discuss  the  matter  at  a  time  when 
the  end  of  the  war  was  virtually  in  sight.  The  Con 
federate  government  could  not  be  blamed,  therefore, 
for  not  accepting  what  was  never  really  offered. 

The  Hampton  Eoads  Conference  accomplished  noth 
ing  for  the  Confederates,  but  on  the  contrary  inflicted 
incalculable  damage  to  their  cause  by  disseminating 
the  impression  abroad  that  they  were  compelled  by 
necessity  to  treat  for  peace.  When  the  dissappointed 
commissioners  returned  to  Eichmond  with  the  report 
that  there  could  be  no  peace  short  of  "  unconditional 
submission, "  the  general  feeling  was  nearly  akin  to 
desperation.  Sherman  was  triumphantly  marching 
northward  and  Lee's  hungry  and  attenuated  army 
must  soon  yield  to  the  hosts  of  Grant.  Davis  made  a 
last  effort  to  inspirit  the  people  through  a  hopeful 
message  to  Congress  and  an  eloquent  public  speech  in 
Eichmond.  Of  that  effort,  wherein  the  Confederacy's 
chief  rose  above  despair  and  called  upon  a  people  to 
defend  their  liberties  to  the  last  breath,  Stephens— 
nearly  always  critical  of  Davis — says :  "It  was  not 
only  bold  and  undaunted  in  tone,  but  had  that  loftiness 
of  sentiment  and  rare  form  of  expression,  as  well  as 


THE  INEVITABLE  COLLAPSE  341 

magnetic  influence  in  its  delivery,  by  which  the  people 
are  moved  to  their  profoundest  depths.  .  .  .  Many 
who  had  heard  this  master  of  oratory  in  his  most 
brilliant  displays  in  the  United  States  Senate  said  they 
never  before  saw  Mr.  Davis  so  really  majestic !  The 
occasion  .  .  .  the  circumstances  .  .  .  caused 
the  minds  of  not  a  few  to  revert  to  like  appeals  by 
Eienzi  and  Demosthenes."  l 

Stephens  listened,  admired  and  was  thrilled,  but 
shook  his  head.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  he  looked 
upon  the  Confederacy's  cause  as  utterly  hopeless. 
"It  may  be  that  it  was  utterly  hopeless  anyhow,"  he 
resignedly  writes  in  his  historical  account.  "  It  may 
be  that  if  the  course  which  I  thought  would  or  could 
have  saved  it  had  been  adopted,  it  would  have  come 
as  far  short  of  success  as  the  one  which  was  pursued  ; 
and  it  may  be  that  the  one  which  was  taken  on  this 
and  all  occasions,  on  which  I  did  not  agree,  was  the 
very  best  that  could  have  been  taken."  Howsoever 
all  this  might  be,  he,  on  his  part,  was  unwilling  to 
sume  responsibility  for  any  further  continuance  of 
war.  He  refused  to  appear  and  speak  at  two  public 
meetings  in  Eichmond,  and  on  February  9th,  parting 
amicably  with  Davis,  as  he  states,  and  without  express 
ing  himself  to  any  one,  he  went  to  Georgia  and  retired 
to  the  quiet  of  his  home,  "  Liberty  Hall,"  there  to 
await  the  inevitable  culmination  of  the  tragedy.  He 
had  not  long  to  wait.  On  April  2d,  the  Confederate 
government  was  forced  to  retreat  from  Eichmond,  and 
on  April  9th,  at  Appomattox,  General  Lee  surrendered 
his  starving  army  and  his  matchless  sword. 

There  were  not  to  be  two  republics,  or  a  dozen,  be- 
1  Stephens,  A  Constitutional  View,  Vol.  II,  pp.  623-4. 


342  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

tween  the  Canada  line  and  the  Eio  Grande— and  for 
this  result,  at  least,  as  well  as  for  the  extinction  of 
slavery,  all  Americans,  even  at  the  South,  may  now 
give  thanks.  The  tragedy  of  battle  and  privation  was 
at  an  end.  The  more  grievous  affliction  of  recon 
struction,  robbery,  and  negro  rule  was  yet  to  come. 


CHAPTEE  XVH 

CARPETBAG  AND  NEGRO  RULE 

STEPHENS  remained  quietly  at  home  until  arrested 
by  the  United  States  authorities  on  May  11,  1865.  In 
the  unpublished  diary  of  his  prison  life  he  states  that 
his  negro  servants  all  wept  when  he  was  taken  away, 
and  that  his  own  grief  at  leaving  his  beloved  home  as 
a  prisoner  of  State  was  "  too  burning,  withering, 
scorching  for  tears. "  A  great  crowd  of  sympathetic 
friends  of  both  races  assembled  at  the  station  in  Craw- 
fordville.  The  leave-taking  was  more  than  Stephens 
could  bear,  and  at  his  request  Captain  Pritchard 
hurried  their  departure.  The  diary  states  that  he 
asked  to  be  conveyed  North  in  a  separate  train  or 
boat  from  that  which  carried  Davis,  but  this  was 
denied  him.  In  the  same  steamer  with  the  Davis 
party,  General  Eeagan,  Clement  C.  Clay  and  General 
Wheeler,  he  was  taken  from  Savannah  to  the  neigh 
borhood  of  Fortress  Monroe,  and  there  transferred  to 
the  warship  bound  for  Fort  Warren,  in  Boston  harbor. 

Concerning  the  meeting  of  Davis  and  Stephens  the 
diary  reads  :  "  As  much  as  I  had  disagreed  with  him,  I 
could  not  but  deeply  sympathize  with  him  in  his  present 
condition.  His  salutation  was  not  unfriendly,  but  far 
from  cordial.  We  passed  but  few  words,  and  they 
were  commonplace.7'  The  tragedy  of  the  situation 
was  deepened  by  the  accusing  attitude  toward  each 
other  of  the  President  and  Vice- President  of  the  dead 


344  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Confederacy.  When  they  parted  at  Hampton  Boads, 
with  an  unknown  fate  before  them,  their  hearts  in 
clined  more  toward  forgiveness.  They  shook  hands 
cordially  and  Davis  seemed  "  more  affected"  than 
Stephens  had  ever  known  him  to  be.  The  elated 
victors  in  charge  of  them  probably  did  not  reflect  that 
the  solemn  convictions  and  tragic  fortunes  of  millions 
of  earnest  men  and  devoted  women  were  represented 
by  these  two  invalids  bound  for  Northern  military 
prisons. 

Captain  Kelly,  of  the  Clyde,  reminded  Stephens  of 
his  anti-secession  speech  at  Milledgeville  in  November, 
1860,  and  expressed  regret  that  he  "  had  not  adhered 
to  it"  The  diary  indicates  that  Stephens  answered 
at  some  length,  showing  that  he  had  adhered  to  it ; 
for,  although  he  opposed  secession  as  bad  policy,  in 
the  same  speech  he  admitted  the  right  to  secede  and 
declared  that  his  highest  allegiance  was  due  the  State 
of  Georgia.  But  Captain  Kelly  "did  not  seem  to 
recollect  that  part  of  the  speech  "  —doubtless  because 
it  was  not  included  in  the  extracts  which  he  had  read. 
Little  is  said  in  the  diary  of  the  voyage  to  Fort 
Warren  on  the  Tuscarora  further  than  that  Captain 
Fraily  gave  up  his  bed  to  Stephens  "in  consideration 
of  his  age  and  past  services  to  the  country."  Why 
there  was  no  spare  stateroom  befitting  his  dignity  is 
not  stated. 

There  is  little  complaint  in  the  diary  of  his  treat 
ment  at  Fort  Warren,  which  appears  to  have  been, 
on  the  whole,  more  humane  and  considerate  than 
might  have  been  expected,  in  view  of  the  public  ex 
citement  and  the  unreasoning  anger  against  all  Con 
federates  resulting  from  the  mad  assassination  of 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGRO  RULE         345 

LincolD,  the  South' s  best  friend  at  the  time  in  any 
way  connected  with  the  United  States  government. 
After  a  few  weeks  of  more  rigorous  confinement 
Stephens  was  permitted  the  freedom  of  the  grounds, 
was  allowed  to  write  to  his  friends  and  to  purchase 
whatever  he  needed  to  insure  his  comfort,  and  his  de 
voted  half-brother,  Judge  Linton  Stephens,  was  finally 
given  permission  to  join  and  remain  with  him  until 
he  was  released  on  parole  on  October  12th,  five  months 
after  his  arrest.  — i 

Stephens' s  liberation  so  long  before  that  of  the  other 
distinguished  prisoners  of  State  was  due  partly  to  the 
friendlier  feeling  toward  him  in  the  North  as  an 
opponent  of  secession  and  partly  to  the  earnest  rep-  \ 
resentations  of  Southern  and  border  State  newspapers  \ 
that  he  would  be  of  great  service  in  bringing  about 
resignation,  loyalty,  and  support  of  the  central  au-  J 
thority  in  his  distracted  section.  The  Louisville  Jew-"" 
nalj  for  example,  urged  the  release  of  Stephens,  "the 
most  brilliant  man  in  the  Southern  States,"  as  "a 
matter  of  policy"  which  "  could  hardly  fail  to  have 
the  happiest  effects."  The  Macon  Telegraph,  of  Sep 
tember  6,  1865,  in  an  article  asking  that  Stephens  be 
allowed  to  return  to  his  home  on  the  ground  that  the 
South  needed  him,  declared  that  "the  whole  people 
of  Georgia  look  upon  him  with  a  feeling  akin  to  idol 
atry."  Stopping  at  the  Astor  House  in  New  York  on 
his  way  South,  Stephens  was  overwhelmed  with  callers. 
The  New  York  World,  of  October  25th,  observed  that 
he  "must  have  found  it  no  agreeable  task  to  respond 
to  the  proffered  palms  of  so  great  a  crowd."  Passing 
through  Atlanta,  it  was  noted  by  the  press  that  "his 
hair  has  turned  quite  gray  since  his  imprisonment." 


346  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

He  went  directly  to  his  country  home  and  remained 
there  in  quiet  until  the  call  of  duty  brought  him  again 
before  the  public  a  few  months  later. 

In  January,  1866,  being  strongly  urged  by  leading 
citizens,  Stephens  agreed  to  serve  as  United  States 
senator  from  Georgia,  and  was  elected,  ex-Governor 
Herschel  V.  Johnson  being  his  colleague ;  but  they 
were  not  allowed  to  take  their  seats,  the  dominant 
element  at  Washington  having  rejected  the  Executive 
plan  of  restoration  (modeled  on  Lincoln's  proposals), 
and  determined  on  a  "  reconstruction  "  of  the  Union. 
On  February  22d  Stephens  delivered  by  request  an 
address  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  which  was  per 
haps  the  noblest  effort  of  his  life.  On  April  16th  he 
was  summoned  before  the  Eeconstruction  Committee 
of  Congress  to  testify  as  to  the  disposition  of  the 
Southern  people.  His  answers  were  bold  and  manly, 
yet  conciliatory.  He  told  the  simple  truth  when  he 
said  that  his  people  had  not  fought  merely  for  slavery, 
but  for  State  sovereignty,  for  Constitutional  liberty, 
and  having  failed  to  secure  independence,  they  were 
now  without  exception  anxious  for  the  restoration  of 
order,  would  gladly  return  to  the  Union  under  the 
terms  of  the  Constitution,  and  were  ready  to  abide 
the  results  of  the  war  in  good  faith.  As  to  the  abstract 
right  of  secession  and  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States, 
he  expressed  himself  without  evasion  or  equivocation. 
"My  convictions  on  the  original  abstract  question, " 
he  said,  "have  undergone  no  change;  but  I  accept 
the  issues  of  the  war  as  a  practical  settlement  of  the 
question. " 

Stephens' s  speech  before  the  Georgia  legislature  on 
February  22,  1866,  as  well  as  his  later  course  in  gen- 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  RULE         347 

eral,  fulfilled  the  promise  that  was  made  for  him  when 
his  release  from  prison  was  urged.  It  was  a  noble 
task  to  seek  to  lift  up  a  fainting  people,  bind  their 
wounds,  give  them  courage  to  face  the  ills  that  afflicted 
them  and  the  greater  ills  yet  to  come,  and  to  suggest 
to  them  how  they  might  do  the  best  for  themselves 
amid  unparalleled  misfortunes.  The  problem  was  not 
merely  the  simple  one  of  submitting  to  the  will  of  the 
conqueror  and  facing  the  widespread  poverty  of  years 
which  the  loss  of  slave  property,  the  devastation  of 
the  country,  the  financial  collapse  and  the  shrinkage 
of  all  values  inevitably  entailed.  There  was  the  fur 
ther  and  greater  problem  of  the  emancipated  negroes 
who,  though  of  an  alien  and  lower  race,  were  to  be 
immediately  enfranchised  and  placed  in  authority  over 
their  former  masters— a  fearful  punishment  such  as  no 
conquered  people  had  ever  before  suffered  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  world.  The  worst  had  not  yet  come,  but 
all  knew  from  the  tone  of  the  speeches  in  Congress 
what  was  to  be.  Stephens  was  not  one  of  the  Southern 
statesmen  who  believed  all  effort  futile,  and,  therefore, 
were  disposed  to  stand  aside,  bow  their  heads  to  the 
storm  and  wrap  themselves  in  a  proud  but  demoraliz 
ing  despair.  However  little  he  might  accomplish  for 
his  ruined  section,  he  was  willing  to  drink  the  waters 
of  humiliation  in  order  to  make  the  effort.  His  criti 
cism  and  counsel  were  therefore  as  constructive  as 
might  be  in  the  awful  crisis. 

He  said  to  the  Georgia  legislators  that  the  subject 
before  them  involved  "the  welfare  of  millions  now 
living  and  that  of  many  more  millions  who  are  to 
come  after  us."  Expressing  the  deepest  sympathy  for 
the  people  of  his  State  and  of  the  South  in  their  suf- 


348  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

ferings,  misfortunes,  and  "  present  utter  prostration," 
he  suggested  that  to  give  way  to  despair  was  the  very 
worst  and  most  disastrous  course  that  could  be  chosen. 
"Adversity/'  he  said,  "is  a  severe  school,  a  terrible 
crucible ;  both  for  individuals  and  communities.  We 
are  now  in  this  school,  this  crucible,  and  should  bear 
in  mind  that  it  is  never  negative  in  its  action.  It  is 
always  positive.  It  is  ever  decided  in  its  effects  j  it 
either  makes  better  or  worse.  It  either  brings  out 
unknown  vices  or  arouses  dormant  virtues.  In  morals 
its  tendency  is  to  make  saints  or  reprobates  ;  in  politics 
to  make  heroes  or  desperadoes.  The  first  indication 
of  its  working  for  good,  to  which  hope  looks  anx 
iously,  is  the  manifestation  of  a  full  consciousness  of 
its  nature  and  extent ;  and  the  most  promising 
grounds  of  hope  for  possible  good  from  our  present 
troubles,  of  things  with  us  getting  better  instead 
of  worse,  is  the  evident  general  realization,  on 
the  part  of  our  people,  of  their  present  situation ; 
of  the  evils  now  upon  them  and  the  greater 
ones  still  impending.  .  .  .  Can  these  evils  upon 
us — the  absence  of  law,  the  want  of  protection  and 
security  of  person  and  property — be  removed?  Or 
can  these  greater  ones  that  threaten  our  very 
political  existence  be  averted?  These  are  the  ques 
tions." 

He  admitted  that  the  fortunes  and  destiny  of  the 
Southern  people  were  not  entirely  in  their  own  hands, 
yet  there  were  some  things  they  might  do  toward  bet 
tering  their  condition.  "The  first  great  duty  that  I 
would  enjoin  at  this  time,"  he  said,  "is  the  exercise 
of  the  simple,  though  difficult  and  trying,  but  never 
theless  indispensable  quality  of  patience  ...  to 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  EULE         349 

bear  and  to  suffer  with  fortitude  whatever  ills  may 
befall.'7  He  urged  as  the  next  great  and  necessary 
duty  "the  exercise  of  a  liberal  spirit  of  forbearance 
among  ourselves  .  .  .  the  banishment  of  every 
feeling  calculated  to  stir  up  the  discords  of  the  past," 
or  to  prompt  any  man  to  accuse  his  neighbor.  As 
common  sharers  in  common  misfortunes,  all  should 
unite  in  an  effort  looking  toward  their  amelioration, 
and,  in  his  judgment,  the  surest  hopes  of  the  Southern 
people  were  bound  up  with  the  restoration  policy  of 
President  Johnson.  "  We  should  accept  the  issues  of 
the  war  and  abide  by  them  in  good  faith.  The  people 
of  Georgia  have  in  convention  revoked  and  annulled 
her  ordinance  of  1861  which  was  intended  to  sever  her 
from  the  compact  of  Union  of  1787.  The  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  has  been  reordained  as  the  organic 
law  of  our  land.  Whatever  differences  of  opinion 
heretofore  existed  as  to  where  our  allegiance  was  due, 
none  for  any  practical  purpose  can  exist  now.  Whether 
Georgia,  by  the  action  of  her  convention  of  1861,  was 
ever  rightfully  out  of  the  Union  or  not,  there  can  be 
no  question  that  she  is  now  in,  so  far  as  depends  upon 
her  will  and  deed.  The  whole  United  States,  there 
fore,  is  now  without  question  our  country,  to  be 
cherished  and  defended  as  such,  by  all  our  hearts  and 
by  all  our  arms." 

But  with  this  change,  he  pointed  out,  came  a  new 
order  of  things  which  must  be  faced.  Georgia  and  the 
other  Southern  States  had  not  only  annulled  their  se 
cession  ordinances  but  had  compliantly  abolished 
slavery.  The  old  social  fabric  had  been  entirely  sub 
verted  and  the  relation  toward  the  negroes  was  alto 
gether  changed. 


350  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

"It  is  a  bootless  question  now  whether  the  new  sys 
tem  is  better  for  both  races  than  the  old  one  was.  That 
may  be  a  proper  matter  for  the  philosophic  historian 
at  some  future  time  to  inquire  into  after  the  new  sys 
tem  shall  have  been  fully  and  fairly  tried.  Our  duty 
is  not  with  the  past  or  the  future  ;  it  is  with  the  pres 
ent.  Let  us  give  the  new  system  a  fair  and  just  trial, 
without  prejudice,  and  with  that  earnestness  of  pur 
pose  which  always  looks  hopefully  to  success.  It  is  an 
ethnological  problem,  on  the  solution  of  which  depends, 
not  only  the  best  interests  of  both  races,  but  it  may  be 
the  existence  of  the  one  or  the  other,  if  not  both. 

1  i  This  duty  of  giving  this  new  system  a  fair  and 
just  trial  will  require  of  you  as  legislators  of  the  land, 
great  changes  in  our  former  laws  in  regard  to  this 
large  class  of  population.  Wise  and  humane  pro 
visions  should  be  made  for  them,  ample  protection 
should  be  secured  them,  so  that  they  may  stand  equal 
before  the  law,  in  the  possession  and  enjoyment  of  all 
rights  of  person,  liberty  and  property.  Many  consid 
erations  claim  this  at  your  hands.  Among  these  may 
be  stated  their  fidelity  in  times  past.  They  cultivated 
your  fields,  ministered  to  your  personal  wants,  nursed 
and  reared  your  children ;  and  even  in  the  hour  of 
peril  they  were,  in  the  main,  true  to  you  and  yours. 
To  them  we  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  as  well  as  acts  of 
kindness.  This  should  be  done  also  because  they  are 
poor,  untutored  and  uninformed.  Legislation  should 
ever  look  to  the  protection  of  the  weak  against  the 
strong.  Inequality  does  not  lessen  the  moral  obliga 
tions  on  the  part  of  the  superior  to  the  inferior,  but 
rather  increases  them.  .  .  .  All  obstacles,  if  there 
be  any,  should  be  removed,  which  can  possibly  hinder 
or  retard  the  improvement  of  the  blacks  to  the  extent 
of  their  capacity.  All  proper  aid  should  be  given  to 
their  own  efforts.  Channels  of  education  should  be 
opened  to  them.  Schools  and  the  usual  means  of 
moral  and  intellectual  training  should  be  encouraged 
amongst  them.  This  is  the  dictate  not  only  of  what  is 
right  and  just  in  itself,  but  it  is  also  the  promptings  of 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGRO  RULE         351 

the  highest  considerations  of  interest.  It  is  difficult  to 
conceive  a  greater  evil  or  curse  that  could  befall  our 
country,  stricken  and  distressed  as  it  now  is,  than  for 
so  large  a  portion  of  its  population  to  be  reared  in 
ignorance,  depravity  and  vice."  1 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  advanced  utterance 
was  delivered  before  the  national  government,  through 
a  new  exercise  of  power,  had  enfranchised  the  blacks 
in  the  Southern  States,  and  before  the  invasion  of 
Northern  school-teachers  and  the  collection  of  Northern 
funds  for  educational  purposes  among  the  freedmen. 
Stephens  closed  with  a  message  of  hope.  He  bade  all 
support  President  Johnson's  policy  of  restoration,  de 
claring  further  that  the  establishment  of  good  govern 
ment  and  the  return  of  fraternal  feeling  throughout  the 
country  depended  upon  both  the  North  and  the  South. 
"I  have  faith,"  he  said,  " in  the  American  people,  in 
their  virtue,  intelligence  and  patriotism." 

His  faith  was  justified  so  far  as  ultimate  results  were 
concerned,  but  the  people  of  the  North  after  the  un 
timely  death  of  Lincoln  were  persuaded  to  support  a 
set  of  revolutionary  leaders  and  radicals  in  Congress 
who  were  determined  to  "make  treason  odious"  by 
holding  the  Southern  States  as  conquered  provinces 
for  years,  and,  while  talking  of  their  magnanimity  in 
not  hanging  the  leaders  of  secession,  meting  out  to  the 
whole  white  population  the  very  refinement  of  cruelty 
in  the  name  of  the  protection  of  the  negroes.  Edmund 
Burke  said  it  was  impossible  to  indict  an  entire  people, 
but  the  radical  leaders  in  Congress  convincingly 
proved  that  he  was  wrong.  The  negro  must  be  pro 
tected,  therefore  he  must  be  made  to  rule  over  the 

1  Cleveland,  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Stephens,  pp.  804-818. 


352  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

whites.  Thaddeus  Stevens  avowedly  aimed  at  "a 
loyal  black  South"  with  the  whites  as  a  disfranchised 
and  disconsidered  class.  He  did  not  care  for  "bloody 
punishments"  but  preferred  " punishments  quite  as 
appalling  and  longer  remembered  than  death,"  also 
favoring  the  latter  * l  because  they  would  reach  a  greater 
number."  *  D.  H.  Chamberlain,  former  carpetbag 
governor  of  South  Carolina,  who  was  certainly  in  a 
position  to  know,  has  declared  that  "minds  were  never 
more  ruthlessly  set  upon  a  policy  than  were  Stevens 
and  Morton  on  putting  the  white  South  under  the  heel 
of  the  black  South,"  adding  that  "not  all  eminent 
Republican  leaders  shared  these  sentiments,  though 
they  acquiesced  in  the  policy."  2  The  theory  that  the 
seceded  States  had  never  been  out  of  the  Union  and 
could  not  go  out  no  longer  held.  They  were  now  out 
and  could  not  get  back  on  anything  faintly  suggesting 
equal  terms  until  they  had  paid  the  uttermost  farthing 
in  loss  of  wealth,  suffering  and  humiliation.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Shellabarger,  of  Ohio,  declared  in  Congress  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  "keep  them  dependencies  for 
ever."3  Speaking  as  a  friendly  Northern  Democrat, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  on  October  20, 
1868,  warned  the  people  of  the  desolate  section  not  to 
forget  that  the  Southern  States  were  "conquered  terri 
tories"  and  that  the  entire  white  population  were 
"prisoners  of  war."  4  As  Garfield,  on  the  Republican 
side,  candidly  expressed  it,  "the  bayonet"  was  "at 


1  Henry  Wilson  (Senator  from  Mass. ),  History  of  Reconstruction, 
pp.  78-9. 

2  Atlantic  Monthly,  April,  1901. 

3  Wilson,  History  of  Reconstruction,  p.  48. 

4  Speech  at  Charleston. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  EULE         353 

the  breast  of  every  rebel  [every  white  person  would 
have  been  more  accurate]  in  the  South.77 

The  hopefulness  displayed  by  Stephens  in  his  con 
structive  address  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  in 
February,  1866,  did  not  last.  Interviewed  by  the  New 
York  Herald  in  September,  1868,  he  said  that  condi 
tions  at  that  time  were  deplorable,  that  "the  last 
vestiges  of  constitutional  freedom"  were  " rapidly 
disappearing,"  and  that  the  country  was  "fast  verg 
ing  into  centralization  and  despotism."  He  declared 
that  peace  was  all  Southern  men  desired,  "  and  the 
civil  liberty  which  as  citizens  of  this  republic  they  are 
entitled  to."  Yet  "in  Georgia  25,000  and  in  Tennes 
see  80,000  Anglo-Saxons  have  been  disfranchised'7 
with  similar  conditions  in  all  the  Southern  States. 
He  cried  out  to  unheeding  ears  that  * i  the  cause  of  the 
South  is  the  cause  of  us  all77 — all  American  lovers  of 
constitutional  republican  government. 

The  vast  extent  of  disfranchisement  among  the 
whites,  accompanying  the  grant  of  universal  manhood 
suffrage  to  the  negroes,  was  due  not  only  to  the  fact 
that  the  proclamation  of  amnesty  excepted  fourteen 
classes  of  Southern  men,  but  to  the  test  oath  provided 
by  Congress  on  March  23,  1867,  which  was  made  even 
more  exhaustive  through  special  enactments  of  the 
carpetbag  and  negro  governments  set  up  in  the  pros 
trate  States.  The  classes  denied  citizenship  in  the 
amnesty  proclamation  of  President  Johnson  were  : 

(1)  All  civil  or  diplomatic  officers,  or  domestic  or 
foreign  agents,  of  the  Confederate  government. 

(2)  All  who  left  judicial  stations  under  the  United 
States  to  aid  the  Confederacy. 

(3)  All  who  had  been  military  or  naval  officers  of 


354  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

the  Confederacy,  above  the  rank  of  colonel  in  the  army 
or  lieutenant  in  the  navy. 

(4)  All  who  left  seats  in  the  United  States  Congress 
to  join  the  Confederacy. 

(5)  All  who  resigned  from  the  army  or  navy  of  the 
United  States  to  evade  resistance  of   the  secession 
movement. 

(6)  All   who  engaged  in  any  way   "in  treating 
otherwise  than  lawfully  as  prisoners  of  war  "  persons 
found  in  the  United  States  service. 

(7)  All  who  were  or  had  been  absentees  from  the 
United  States  for  purposes  of  aiding  the  Confederates. 

(8)  All  military  or  naval  officers  in  the  Confederate 
service  who  had  been  educated  at  West  Point  or  at  the 
United  States  Naval  Academy. 

(9)  All  who  held  offices  as  governors  of  the  seceded 
States. 

(10)  All  persons  who  passed  from  North  to  South 
for  purposes  of  aiding  the  Confederacy. 

(11)  All  who  had  been  engaged  in  the  destruction 
of  the  commerce  of  the  United  States,  or  in  raids  from 
Canada. 

(12)  All  in  military  or  civil  confinement  or  custody 
for  offenses  of  any  kind. 

(13)  All  citizens  of  the  seceded  States  owning  prop 
erty  valued  at  more  than  $20,000. 

(14)  All  persons  who  took  the  oath  of  amnesty 
under  the  proclamation  of  December  8,  1863,  and  had 
not  "kept  and  maintained  the  same  inviolate. " 

The  test  oath  provided  by  Congress,  March  23,  1867, 
for  all  who  were  to  be  permitted  to  vote,  in  the  five 
military  districts,  into  which  the  eleven  seceded  States 
had  been  merged,  covered  not  only  the  excepted  classes 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  EULE         355 

of  the  amnesty  proclamation,  but  added  to  these  dis 
franchised  classes  every  man  who  had  ever  "been 
a  member  of  any  State  legislature,  or  held  any  execu 
tive  or  judicial  office  in  any  State,  and  afterward  en 
gaged  in  insurrection  against  the  United  States  or 
given  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof."  This 
test  oath,  already  so  exhaustive  that  scarcely  one  honest 
Southern  white  man  could  conscientiously  take  it,  was 
enlarged  on  by  the  carpetbag  and  negro  authorities  in 
the  different  Southern  States.  In  Tennessee,  for  ex 
ample,  it  read  :  "I  do  most  solemnly  swear  that  I 
have  never  voluntarily  borne  arms  against  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  for  the  purpose  of,  or  with 
the  intention  of,  aiding  the  late  rebellion,  nor  have  I 
with  any  such  intention,  at  any  time,  given  aid,  com 
fort,  counsel  or  encouragement  to  said  rebellion,"  etc., 
etc.  As  ninety-nine  one-hundredths  of  the  entire  white 
population  had  in  one  way  or  another  given  i  i  aid, 
comfort,  counsel  or  encouragement,"  few  white  men, 
women  or  children  in  the  South  could  have  taken  such 
an  oath  without  personal  infamy,  or  without  incurring 
the  penalty  provided  for  perjury.  Even  before  these 
test  oaths  were  ordained,  and  merely  as  a  result  of  the 
exceptions  in  the  amnesty  proclamation,  the  Union 
governor  of  Virginia  in  his  message  to  the  legislature, 
June  20,  1865,  declared  that  "  nineteen-twentieths  of 
the  [white]  people  are  disfranchised  and  cannot  hold 
office." 

But  even  such  complete  measures  as  these  for  the 
indictment  and  punishment  of  a  whole  people,  and  for 
giving  the  votes  of  eleven  unwilling  States  to  the 
Eepublican  party,  did  not  satisfy,  and  intimidation  of 
white  voters  was  resorted  to.  One  method  of  doing 


356  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

this  was  "to  handcuff  Democrats  and  carry  them 
great  distances  and  by  devious  routes  through  popu 
lous  portions  of  the  State,  exhibiting  them  by  the  way 
in  such  manner  as  to  encourage  the  blacks  and  in 
timidate  the  whites."  l  In  South  Carolina  alone  96,000 
negroes  were  enrolled  in  military  companies  and 
kept  needlessly  active  at  a  great  cost.  The  few  native 
white  companies  in  existence  were  ordered  to  disband. 
The  policy  in  election  campaigns,  as  appears  from  the 
report  on  June  25, 1870,  of  a  deputy  constable  of  that 
State  was  to  "encourage  the  [negro]  militia  and 
frighten  poor  white  men."  2  Eace  conflicts,  resulting 
in  the  killing  of  a  negro  or  negroes  here  and  there 
were  encouraged,  instead  of  discouraged,  for  the  sake 
of  the  hue  and  cry  and  the  further  supply  of  Federal 
troops  that  might  be  called  for.  Carpetbag  Governor 
Smith  of  Alabama,  who,  like  Chamberlain  of  South 
Carolina,  sickened  at  the  atrocities  committed  by  the 
aliens  and  negroes  in  control,  said  of  one  of  the  former, 
J.  D.  Sibley,  in  a  letter  to  the  Huntsville  Advocate, 
July  25,  1870,  that  he  did  not  want  the  law  executed 
1 1  because  that  would  put  down  crime,  and  crime  is  his 
life's  blood  ;  he  would  like  very  much  to  have  a  Ku 
Klux.  outrage  every  week  to  assist  him  in  keeping  up 
strife  .  .  .  and  furnish  a  semblance  of  truth  to 
[Senator]  Spencer's  libels  upon  the  people  of  the 
State." 

The  writing  of  the  darkest  page  in  American  history 
was  begun  when  in  December,  1865,  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
of  Pennsylvania,  introduced  a  joint  resolution  in  the 
Thirty-ninth  Congress  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of 

1  Ex-Secretary  H.  A.  Herbert,  Why  the  Solid  South,  p.  65. 
8  Ibid. ,  p.  93-4. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGRO  RULE         357 

the  Southern  States  and  report  whether  "any  of  them 
are  entitled  to  be  represented  in  either  house  of  Con 
gress."  For  his  part,  he  did  not  think  they  ought 
ever  to  be  admitted  to  representation  until  the  Consti 
tution  should  be  "  so  amended  .  .  .  as  to  secure 
perpetual  ascendency  to  the  party  of  the  Union."  He 
also  wanted  to  see  the  "proud  traitors "  and  their 
children  put  to  work,  and  he  advised  that  the  "  prop 
erty  of  the  subdued  enemy"  be  employed  to  support 
disabled  soldiers  of  the  Union.1  Senator  Fessenden  of 
Maine  argued  that  "the  conqueror  has  the  right,  if  he 
chooses,"  not  only  "to  punish"  but  "to  change  the 
form  of  government."  Mr.  Shell abarger,  of  Ohio, 
accompanied  his  argument  that  the  Southern  States 
should  be  "kept  dependencies  forever"  with  the 
sensational  declaration,  as  conscienceless  as  it  was  ri 
diculous,  that  the  Confederates  "carved  the  bones  of 
your  dead  heroes  into  ornaments,  and  drank  from 
goblets  made  out  of  their  skulls  !  " 

The  policy  of  envenomed  radicals  prevailed,  and  from 
eight  to  ten  years  the  Southern  States  were  kept  under 
alien  and  negro  domination  by  enactments  which  could 
be  used  to  disfranchise  virtually  every  white  man  in  a 
given  Southern  community,  and  were  so  employed 
whenever  it  suited  the  purposes  of  those  in  local 
authority.  Against  these  enactments  and  the  Federal 
troops  and  negro  militia,  those  who  represented  the 
virtue,  intelligence  and  ability  of  the  Southern  States 
were  helpless.  And  yet  Abraham  Lincoln  in  his  letter 
to  Governor  Hahn,  of  Louisiana,  had  advocated  the 
immediate  enfranchisement  of  only  a  few  of  the  more 

1  Wilson,  History  of  Reconstruction,  pp.  78-9. 
9  Ibid.,  p.  47. 


358  ALEXANDEK  H.  STEPHENS 

intelligent  negroes  and  those  who  had  fought  well  in 
the  Union  ranks.  He  had  also  proposed  the  imme 
diate  restoration  of  the  Southern  States,  and  these,  in 
expectation  of  such  a  course,  had  elected  new  govern 
ments  composed  almost  entirely  of  men  who  had  op 
posed  secession.  The  reorganized  governments  had 
promptly  adopted  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  com 
pliantly  repudiating  the  Confederate  debt  and  assum 
ing  the  national  debt,  and  submission  was  so  universal 
that  Grant  reported  to  the  President  in  December,  1865, 
a  general  acceptance  at  the  South  of  the  situation  "in 
good  faith." 

Nevertheless  by  the  act  of  March  2,  1867,  the  South 
ern  State  governments  were  annulled  and  the  country 
placed  under  military  rule.  The  reason  for  this,  as  an 
nounced,  was  that  the  Southern  States  had  rejected  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  and  that  the  freedinen  needed 
protection.  The  Southern  State  governments  assumed 
that  they  might  deliberate,  debate  and  act  freely  as  in 
former  times,  but  it  was  a  reckless  assumption,  and, 
could  they  have  looked  into  the  future,  they  would 
have  done  all  that  was  required  of  them,  even  this. 
Yet  they  would  have  been  less  than  human  if  they  had 
not  at  first  balked  at  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  which 
disfranchised  their  own  leaders  and  branded  with  dis 
honor  their  best  citizens.  The  amendment  disqualified 
for  any  office,  civil  or  military,  under  either  the 
national  or  State  governments,  all  who  had  "engaged 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States  or  given  aid  or 
comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof." 

As  for  the  protection  of  the  negroes,  the  speech  of 
Stephens,  which  has  been  outlined,  indicates  the  exist 
ence  at  the  outset  of  a  disposition  among  leading 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  EULE         359 

Southern  men  to  give  the  freedmen  a  fuller  measure  of 
kindly  consideration  and  justice  than  could  reasonably 
have  been  expected  under  conditions  so  trying.  There 
was  no  hatred  of  the  negro  in  the  beginning,  but  only  a 
rational  recognition  of  his  fitness  for  a  subordinate 
position  in  human  society,  even  though  free.  As  re 
gards  those  "  new  slave  codes  in  the  South,"  as  Elaine l 
describes  certain  laws  enacted  in  order  to  meet  the 
conditions  of  an  utterly  demoralized  labor  situation,  no 
unprejudiced  mind  can  condemn  the  general  purpose 
in  them,  although  in  some  particulars  they  doubtless 
went  too  far,  and  their  framers  were  unquestionably 
indiscreet,  in  view  of  the  times.  The  disordered 
condition  of  the  labor  market  was  partly  due  to  the 
sudden  emancipation  of  millions  of  slaves,  partly  to 
the  indolent  and  improvident  character  of  the  negroes 
in  the  mass,  and  partly  to  the  corrupting  influence, 
industrially  at  least,  of  the  Freedmen7  s  Bureau  and 
the  Union  League.  In  his  report  to  the  President, 
December  18,  1865,  General  Grant  said  that  "  the  belief 
widely  spread  among  the  freedmen  of  the  Southern 
States  that  the  lands  of  their  former  owners  will,  at 
least  in  part,  be  divided  among  them,  has  come  from 
the  agents  of  this  [Freedmen' s]  Bureau." 

While  the  Bureau  fed  them  on  this  hope,  the  League 
tended  to  draw  them  from  industry  to  politics  as  a  live 
lihood  and  to  cultivate  in  them  distrust  and  suspicion 
of  all  native  white  men.  Its  very  initiation,  for  ex 
ample,  required  the  applicant  to  "  hold  and  believe 
that  secession  is  treason."  All  this  made  for  the 
policy  of  a  loyal  black  South  with  the  whites  as  a  dis 
considered  class— also  for  idling,  vagrancy  and  theft 
1  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,  Vol.  II,  p.  94. 


360  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

among  the  negroes.  There  was  no  other  large  class  of 
laborers,  the  country  was  impoverished,  the  land  must 
be  tilled,  and  employers  were  desperate.  Hence  the  at 
tempt  to  meet  the  situation  and  bring  a  certain  amount 
of  order  out  of  chaos  by  the  enactment  of  vagrant  laws, 
holding  heedless  negro  employees  to  their  promises. 

Discussing  these  enactments,  Elaine  complained  that 
1 ' '  stubborn  and  refractory  servants '  and  l  servants 
who  loiter  away  their  time '  were  declared  by  law  to 
be  '  vagrants '  and  might  be  brought  before  a  justice 
of  the  peace  and  fined  fifty  dollars,  and  in  default  of 
payment  they  might  be  hired  out  on  three  days'  notice 
by  public  outcry  for  the  period  of  three  months."  ' 
To  the  Northern  mind  this  severe  punishment  readily 
suggested  the  conditions  of  recent  slavery,  yet  Elaine 
might  have  brought  the  same  complaint  against  the 
authorities  of  Ehode  Island,  the  laws  of  that  State3 
providing  :  "If  any  servant  or  apprentice  shall  depart 
from  the  service  of  his  master  or  otherwise  neglect 
his  duty  "  he  shall  be  arrested  on  oath  to  be  made  "  in 
writing  by  his  master,"  and  committed  to  the  state 
workhouse  of  correction.  The  difference  between 
"otherwise  neglect  his  duty"  and  "loiter  away  his 
time  "  suggests  that  between  Tweedledum  and  Tweedle- 
dee,  and  the  punishment  is  the  same — enforced  labor 
in  a  Ehode  Island  workhouse  and  enforced  labor  on  a 
Southern  farm.  The  apprentice  laws  adopted  at  the 
same  time  in  the  South  were  also  similar  to  those  then 
existing  in  the  New  England  States,  as  ex-Secretary 
Herbert  has  shown  by  numerous  comparisons.8  Yet 

1  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,  Vol.  II,  p.  94. 

2  Revised  Statutes  of  1872,  p.  243. 
8  Why  the  Solid  South,  pp.  31-36. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGRO  RULE         361 

the  New  England  States  did  not  suffer  at  that  time 
from  the  same  distressing  demoralization  of  labor  con 
ditions,  and  intermeddling  emissaries  from  distant 
points  were  not  multiplying  that  demoralization  a 
hundredfold.  The  supersensitive  attitude  of  the 
Northern  mind  is  revealed  when  Elaine  even  points 
accusingly  to  the  terms  " master,'7  " mistress,"  etc., 
although  the  same  terms  occur  in  the  New  England 
statutes  and  are  embedded  in  the  terminology  of  the 
law  descending  to  us  from  old  England.  Indignation 
on  the  part  of  an  uninformed  Northern  public  against 
the  alleged  "new  slave  codes"  was  perfectly  natural, 
however,  and  it  was  inevitably  made  the  most  of  by 
radical  politicians. 

Testimony  of  no  little  interest  in  this  connection 
may  be  found  in  a  volume  written  by  a  negro  State 
senator  from  Leon  County,  Florida.  Discussing  the 
conditions  while  that  State  was  still  under  military 
rule,  he  declares  that  "  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the 
regular  array  .  .  .  would  abuse  and  maltreat  the 
negro  much  worse  than  their  former  masters,  who  in 
many  instances  would  have  to  interfere  in  his  behalf, 
to  save  him  from  cruelty  and  injustice."  '  Writing 
of  the  " oppression  and  usurpation  of  power"  that  in 
Jackson  County  resulted  in  arraying  the  two  races 
"against  each  other  in  deadly  hostility,"  a  the  same 
author  says  :  "This  state  of  things  was  not  due  to  the 
enmity  of  the  whites  to  the  blacks,  nor  their  opposi 
tion  to  the  new  law  enfranchising  the  latter — though 
they  were  opposed  to  it  of  course — nor  was  it  due  to 
any  natural  bad  temper  or  hatred  of  the  whites  on  the 

1  John  Wallace,  Carpetbag  Rule  in  Florida  (1888),  p.  37. 
id.,  p.  107. 


362  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

part  of  the  colored  people  .  .  .  [but]  to  the  evil 
influence  of  the  very  men  who  were  delegated  to  pre 
serve  peace,  to  administer  j  ustice. '  >  This  negro  writer 
urges  in  his  preface  that  the  freedmen  "  would  have 
made  better  citizens  and  more  honest  legislators  if 
they  had  not  been  contaminated  by  strange  white 
men"  (from  distant  States),  adding,  with  much  point, 
that  "the  secret  leagues  riveted  the  former  slaves  to 
these  strangers." 

Senator  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  in  his  History  of 
Reconstruction, 1  remarks  that '  *  to  reconstruct  the  Union 
so  as  to  secure  the  fruits  of  victory  was  no  easy  task." 
Possibly  it  was  with  a  view  to  securing  some  of  the 
"  fruits  of  victory"  that  General  Pope,  while  in  com 
mand  of  the  military  district  of  Georgia,  Florida  and 
Alabama,  issued  orders  that  legal  advertising  would 
not  be  legal  unless  published  in  Eepublican  news 
papers.  The  latter  being  few  and  far  between,  prop 
erty  sold  at  public  outcry  and  other  legal  matters  had 
to  be  announced  in  journals  published  from  a  hundred 
to  two  hundred  miles  distant  from  the  communities  to 
which  the  business  related.2 

An  idea  of  the  policy  of  the  military  authorities  of 
the  district  including  South  Carolina  may  be  gath- 

1  Page  14. 

2  One  result  of  this  act  of  needless  oppression  was  that  Philip  C. 
Pendleton,  a  paroled  officer  of  Lee's  army,  who  had  begun  the  pub 
lication  of  the  South  Georgia  Times  in  a  thinly  settled  section  of  the 
State,  lost  the  legal  advertising  of  eight  counties.     Thus  this  con 
servative  newspaper  whose  files  show  counsels  of  submission  to  the 
aliens  in  authority  and  of  kindliness  toward  the  freedmen,  received 
a  staggering  blow  from  which  it  was  years  in  recovering.     It  is  a 
source  of  pride  to  this  editor's  heirs  that,  in  spite  of  such  persecu 
tion,  his  newspaper  (now  known  as  the  Valdosta  Times)  survived, 
and  the  majority  of  its  stock  still  remains  in  the  possession  of  his 
family. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  KEGEO  EULE         363 

ered  from  the  fact  that  that  State's  new  constitution  of 
April,  1868,  was  adopted  by  the  votes  of  negroes  upon 
whom  the  ballot  had  not  yet  been  formally  conferred 
either  by  that  State  or  by  the  United  States,  the  Fif 
teenth  Amendment,  which  as  Grant's  proclamation 
announced,  "  makes  at  once  four  millions  of  people 
voters,"  not  being  ratified  till  March  30,  1870.  This 
South  Carolina  convention  of  1868  was  made  up  of 
thirty-four  white  and  sixty-three  negro  delegates.1 
The  thirty-four  whites  were  composed  of  Northern 
carpetbaggers  and  a  handful  of  native  renegades  almost 
entirely  from  the  scum  of  the  State.  The  misrule  that 
followed  in  this  and  other  Southern  States  has  been 
well  described  by  Professor  Burgess,  of  Columbia  Uni 
versity,  as  " soul-sickening,"2  and  by  the  British  his 
torian  Lecky,  in  his  Democracy  and  Liberty,  as  "a 
grotesque  parody  of  government,  a  hideous  orgy  of 
anarchy,  violence,  unrestrained  corruption,  undis 
guised,  ostentatious,  insulting  robbery,  such  as  the 
world  had  scarcely  ever  seen." 

In  May,  1875,  D.  H.  Chamberlain  (apparently  the 
only  carpetbagger  worthy  of  respect),  stated  to  a  cor 
respondent  of  the  Cincinnati  Commercial  that  when  he 
entered  on  his  duties  as  governor  of  South  Carolina  in 
1874  two  hundred  trial  justices  were  holding  office  by 
executive  appointment  who  could  neither  read  nor 
write.  In  Georgia,  after  the  proclamation  excepting 
from  amnesty  fourteen  classes,  which  included  all  the 
influential  citizens  and  those  "whose  taxable  property 
was  over  $20,000,"  informations  were  filed  in  the 
United  States  Court  by  the  district-attorney  praying 

1  Why  the  Solid  South,  p.  85. 

2  Burgess,  Reconstruction  and  the  Constitution,  pp.  263-4. 


364  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

confiscation  of  the  property  of  the  proscribed  classes, 
and  these  proceedings  resulted  in  a  harvest  of  costs 
exacted  as  a  condition  of  settlement  from  people  who 
in  the  universal  financial  depression  were  unable  to 
bear  the  burden. 1  Such  extortions  became  very  com 
mon  under  the  order  from  Washington  directing  the 
Attorney- General  to  instruct  the  proper  officers  to  libel 
and  bring  to  judgment,  confiscation  and  sale,  all  prop 
erty  subject  to  confiscation.2 

The  invitation  to  carpetbaggers  to  overrun  the  coun 
try  was  contained  in  the  ruling  of  the  highest  author 
ities  that  where  suitable  residents  could  not  be  found 
appointments  should  be  made  from  other  States.  As  a 
rule  the  only  "  suitable "  residents  were  ignorant 
negroes,  and  here  and  there  a  mercenary  white  man 
who  was  a  disgrace  to  his  section.  A  popular  method 
of  extortion  practiced  upon  a  helpless  people  is  illus 
trated  by  the  case  of  Colonel  James  J.  Gathings,3  of 
Hill  County,  Texas,  against  whom  no  charge  of  any 
kind  had  been  preferred.  Without  warning  Lieuten 
ant  Pritchett,  with  three  white  and  four  negro  police, 
invaded  his  home  in  December,  1870,  and  searched  it 
despite  his  protests.  The  result  of  incautious  com 
plaint  against  Pritchett  was  that  General  Davidson 
with  a  hundred  State  guards  was  sent  to  the  vicinity 
and  promptly  arrested  Gathings,  placing  him  in  the 
court-house,  excluding  all  citizens,  and  stationing  a 
heavy  guard.  It  was  then  suggested  to  the  helpless 
victim  that  if  he  would  pay  five  hundred  dollars  a 
day,  estimated  as  the  expenses  of  the  force  that  held 
him,  no  military  commission  would  be  convened  to  try 

1  Why  the  Solid  South,  p.  114. 

*21rid.,  p.  115.  *ffid.,  pp.  374-5. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  RULE         365 

him.  The  prisoner  refusing  to  comply,  Davidson  de 
clared  that  he  would  place  the  county  under  martial 
law,  tax  its  people  to  support  the  troops,  try  him  by 
court-martial,  and  send  him  to  the  penitentiary  without 
the  right  of  appeal.  Thus  terrorized,  poor  Gathings 
agreed  to  a  subsequent  proposal  to  settle  the  matter 
for  $3,000,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  friends,  he  paid 
the  money.  In  no  case  was  it  of  the  slightest  use  to 
complain  either  to  the  corrupt  State  or  the  unfeeling 
national  authority,  for,  as  ex-Governor  Chamberlain 
observes,1  "so  ingrained  was  the  disregard  of  South 
ern  Democrats  ...  so  implacable  was  the  de 
termination  of  the  officials  and  leaders  at  Washington 
to  keep  the  [carpetbag  and  negro]  heel  on  the  [South 
ern  white]  neck,  that  hardly  one  high  Eepublican 
authority  could  be  appealed  to  for  discountenance"  of 
the  corrupt  rulers  and  their  vicious  methods. 

The  legislature  of  South  Carolina  in  1868  contained 
eighty-five  negro  members,  fifty-two  carpetbaggers 
and  "  scalawags"  (native  renegades),  and  twenty-one 
Democrats.  The  negroes  and  carpetbaggers,  besides 
voting  themselves  unheard-of  salaries,  Havana  cigars, 
free  champagne,  etc.,2  filled  their  pockets  with  the  loot 
of  the  State.  In  the  capitol  of  North  Carolina  also 
there  was  a  bar  which  the  tax-payers  were  compelled 
to  support,  and  rooms  devoted  to  purposes  of  prostitu 
tion.3  J.  S.  Pike,  a  Eepublican  and  ex-United  States 
minister  to  the  Hague,  after  investigating  "  a  society 
turned  bottom  side  up,"  reported  that  the  treasury  of 
South  Carolina  "  has  been  'so  thoroughly  gutted  by  the 
thieves  .  .  .  there  is  nothing  left  to  steal."  He 

1  Atlantic  Monthly,  April,  1901. 

2  Why  the  Solid  South,  p.  89.  s  lUd.,  p.  80. 


366  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

not  only  studied  the  "huge  system  of  brigandage," 
took  note  of  the  "  pi  eked  villains"  who  u robbed  the 
poor  and  rich  alike  by  law,"  but  observed  that  the 
negro  majority  did  "  the  debating,  the  squabbling,  the 
law-making,"  created  "all  the  clamor  and  disorder," 
and  that  some  of  their  * l  types  it  would  be  hard  to  find 
outside  of  the  Congo."  l  There  were  frauds  in  connec 
tion  with  taxation,  State  bonds,  and  railroads,  and  of 
every  other  possible  kind.  In  1871  South  Carolina's 
taxable  property  was  only  one-third  the  value  of  what  it 
was  in  1860,  but  the  taxes  gathered  had  increased  500 
per  cent.  In  consequence  in  the  single  year  1874  no  less 
than  2,900  pieces  of  real  estate  had  to  be  forfeited  for 
taxes  in  Charleston  County  alone.  In  Arkansas  the 
lands  of  Democrats  were  openly  assessed  at  from  two  to 
five  times  the  value  of  Eepublicans'  lands  of  the  same 
quality.2  The  alleged  cost  of  public  printing  in 
South  Carolina  from  1868  to  1876  was  greater  than  in 
Massachusetts,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and 
Maryland  combined  and  was  more  than  double  the 
amount  paid  out  by  the  State  for  that  purpose  during 
the  previous  seventy-eight  years.  In  the  last  desperate 
struggle  of  the  carpetbag  and  negro  governments  to 
hold  their  position  the  prices  of  votes  ranged  from 
$25  to  $2, 000. 

The  State  debt  of  Georgia  under  alien  and  negro 
rule  rose  from  five  to  eighteen  millions  ;  that  of  Ala 
bama  from  eight  to  twenty -five  millions.  South  Caro 
lina's  debt  was  multiplied  by  four  during  the  first  four 
years  of  Eepublican  administration.  In  North  Caro 
lina  the  alien  government  saddled  the  State  with  a 

1  J.  S.  Pike,  The  Prostrate  State,  pp.  10,  12,  26,  58. 

2  Why  the  Solid  South,  p.  315. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  EULE         367 

debt  of  $42,000,000,  although  the  whole  property  of 
the  commonwealth  in  its  impoverished  condition  was 
not  over  $120,000,000.  In  the  entire  South  the  as 
sessed  value  of  property  was  $2,100,000,000  less  in  1870 
than  it  was  in  1860.  The  desolation  of  so-called  recon 
struction  following  upon  the  devastation  of  war  ex 
plains  the  reproach  of  alleged  lack  of  enterprise  in  the 
prostrate  Southern  States  for  so  many  years — a  re 
proach  for  which  there  is  happily  no  longer  any  basis. 
Harder  to  bear  than  poverty,  the  squandering  and 
stealing  of  the  public  money  (for  which  there  was  not 
one  public  improvement  to  show),  disfranchisement, 
extortion  and  innumerable  forms  of  oppression,  was 
the  elevation  of  the  ignorant  ex-slaves  into  the  seats  of 
the  mighty  and  all  that  that  unparalleled  atrocity  in 
volved.  Even  so  conservative  and  unimpassioned  a 
witness  as  Hon.  Henry  G.  Turner,  of  Georgia,  speaks 
of  the  "  disdainful  scorn7'  l  of  the  puffed -up  negroes 
for  the  prostrate  whites.  The  Alabama  Democratic 
platform  of  1874  complained  that  the  Eepublican  party 
had  "  inflamed  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the  ne 
groes  as  a  race  against  the  [native]  white  people. " 
There  were  virtually  unprovoked  murders  of  Demo 
crats  by  the  negro  militia  with  the  connivance  of  the 
carpetbag  and  negro  governments.2  Citizens  swal 
lowed  many  an  affront  from  negroes  whose  heads  had 
been  turned,  realizing  that  the  safety  of  their  families 
was  at  stake.  Negresses  of  heavy  build  deliberately 
threw  themselves  against  delicately  nurtured  white 
women  on  the  streets,  shouting  :  "  I  don't  gie  de  road 
to  po'  buckra  !  "  White  children  were  waylaid  and 

1  Why  the  Solid  South,  p.  126. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  289-301. 


368  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

beaten  by  negro  youths.  And  it  was  at  this  time  that 
were  first  heard  of  those  attacks  on  white  women  by 
negro  brutes,  who  were  taught  that  they  could  and 
should  marry  into  the  master  but  now  prostrate  race. 
Who  can  wonder  at  the  Southern  contention  that  for 
every  negro  dragged  out  of  bed  in  the  dead  of  night 
and  flogged  or  slain  the  radical  leaders  at  Washington 
were  morally  responsible  ? 

Nor  can  we  wonder  that  so  many  Southern  men,  in 
spite  of  the  intense  love  of  native  soil,  abandoned 
everything  but  their  families  and  went  as  almost 
penniless  emigrants  to  the  far  West,  to  Canada,  to 
Mexico,  Cuba,  Brazil  and  elsewhere.1  It  was  nothing 
more  than  a  dreadful  symptom  of  a  still  more  dreadful 
disease  when  a  night-riding  Ku  Klux  Klan  arose  in 
every  Southern  State  to  remind  the  deluded  and  crimi 
nal  blacks  that,  after  all,  the  native  whites— even  with 
Federal  bayonets  at  their  breasts — were  not  absolutely 
helpless  and  could  still  strike  for  home  and  fireside. 
Granting  the  real  and  alleged  bloodshed  attributed 
to  that  mysterious  organization,  or  to  those  afterward 
masquerading  in  and  abusing  its  name,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  in  its  first  organized  activity  it  was  a 
power  for  good,  in  spite  of  the  desperate  means  em 
ployed,  and  that  it  helped  to  save  a  civilization  threat 
ened  with  absolute  extinction. 

What  brought  the  nightmare  to  an  end  1    There  was 

1  On  December  17,  1867,  Charles  Nathan,  of  New  Orleans,  pub 
lished  a  notice  that  he  had  arranged  with  the  Emperor  of  Brazil  to 
carry  to  that  country  a  thousand  families  per  annum.  Members 
of  the  Brazilian  colony  who  did  not  prosper  were  brought  back  in 
an  American  war-ship  several  years  later.  Nothing  but  wide 
spread  poverty  prevented  a  vast  emigration  from  the  Southern 
States. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  KULE         369 

a  combination  of  causes,  chief  of  which  was  the  determi 
nation  of  the  native  whites — who  grew  stronger  toward 
the  last  as  more  of  them  were  amnestied — to  throw  off 
the  yoke  at  all  hazards,  as  illustrated  in  the  South 
Carolina  campaign  led  by  General  Wade  Hampton. 
In  many  communities  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  bred  a  dis 
taste  for  the  ballot-box  among  the  negroes.  The  radi 
cal  leaders  of  the  North  were  unnerved  by  the  utter 
ances  of  such  men  as  Horace  Greeley,  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  Carl  Schurz,  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and 
their  grip  relaxed.  They  were  also  frightened  by  the 
Democratic  gains  in  the  midst  of  General  Grant's 
second  term  and  the  great  vote  for  Tilden  in  1876, l 
accepting  these  as  a  rebuke  to  the  powers  in  control, 
and  rightly,  for  they  were  a  sign  that  the  people  of  the 
North  and  West  were  beginning  to  realize  that  they 
could  not  hold  to  the  institutions  of  their  fathers  and 
at  the  same  time  endorse  what  was  being  done  in  the 
South.  The  troops  began  to  be  recalled  and  the 
carpetbaggers  trembled.  No  sooner  was  the  with 
drawal  complete  than  nature  asserted  itself  and  the 
bayonet-protected  fabric  toppled  to  the  ground. 

The  sense  of  relief  in  the  South  after  the  deliverance 
from  the  hideous  incubus,  the  satisfaction  in  the  knowl 
edge  that  the  local  governments  would  once  more  come 
into  the  hands  of  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  each 
community,  the  joy  in  the  certainty  that  the  ten  years 
of  "  the  very  abomination  of  desolation  "2  had  come  to 
an  end,  are  vividly  suggested  by  the  following  words 

1  The  Electoral  Commission  of  eight  Republicans  and  seven 
Democrats  decided,  by  a  strict  party  vote,  that  Hayes  was  elected. 
The  popular  vote  for  Tilden,  by  Republican  count,  was  4,285,992; 
for  Hayes,  4,033,768. 

a  Burgess,  Reconstruction  and  the  Constitution,  p.  296. 


370  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

of  Colonel  James  T.  Bacon  in  the  Edgefield  (S.  C.) 
Advertiser,  describing  the  feelings  of  the  citizens  after 
being  assured  of  "Wade  Hampton's  triumph  : 

"They  are  filled  with  exultation — with  glory — with 
unbounded,  unrestrained,  tumultuous  joy.  The  day 
has  come  to  their  deliverance  from  the  most  damnable 
and  degrading  yoke  that  ever  galled  the  necks  of  free 
men  !  Many  of  them  are  mounted,  while  the  majority 
are  on  foot.  They  yell,  they  shriek,  they  scream,  they 
shout,  they  sing,  they  pray  ;  they  embrace  their  friends, 
hail  their  comrades  ;  they  cheer  lustily  for  Hampton, 
for  Tilden,  for  Butler,  for  Gary  !  They  charge  to  and 
fro  like  rockets.  They  stream  about  in  ever-eddying 
channels  of  excitement.  They  are  wild,  crazy,  buoyant 
as  the  bubbles  upon  the  crested  waves.  And  why 
should  they  not  be  f  In  the  name  of  God,  why  should 
they  not  be  f 

"If  they  shoot  the  stars  and  straddle  the  meteors, 
and  leap  over  the  moon,  who  could  blame  them  ?  " 

But  the  collapse  of  the  carpetbag  and  negro  govern 
ments  did  not  solve  the  negro  problem,  and  no  satis 
factory  solution  is  even  now  in  prospect.  The  South 
ern  States  enjoy  local  self-government  and  have  at 
tained  a  large  measure  of  prosperity,  built  up  from  the 
ashes  of  the  past ;  but  the  negroes  are  still,  as  they 
have  been  for  eighty-eight  years,  or  since  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  a  source  of  irritation  between  the  sections. 
They  are  still,  as  they  have  been  throughout  the  same 
period,  a  bar  to  that  immigration  which  the  South  has 
so  much  needed  and  yet  needs.  According  to  the  re 
port  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education, 
1896-97, '  between  that  date  and  1870  the  Southern 
States  had  taxed  themselves  a  hundred  million  dollars 

'Vol.  II,  p.  2296. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGBO  KULE         371 

to  provide  public  schools  for  the  blacks  (more  than 
nine-tenths  of  which  was  paid  by  the  whites)  ;  but  un 
happily  education  complicates  instead  of  solves  the 
problem,  inasmuch  as  it  makes  for  greater  discontent 
among  the  negroes,  and  breeds  in  them  the  disposition 
more  and  more  to  demand  what  the  whites,  at  the 
North  as  well  as  at  the  South,  are  unwilling  to  grant. 
Social  inequality  is  inevitable  even  among  the  people 
of  the  same  race,  but  here  we  have  a  great  dividing 
line  drawn  at  race  and  color,  which  no  man  on  either 
side,  if  left  to  his  normal  instincts,  will  desire  to  over 
pass.  It  is  a  simple  fact,  which  every  reflecting  mind 
will  recognize,  that  there  is  not  an  acre  of  land  in  the 
United  States  whereon  a  negro  can  have  in  every  par 
ticular  a  white  man's  chance.  We  may  discover  the 
injustice  of  race  prejudice  in  the  abstract,  but  we  bow 
to  its  decree  in  the  presence  of  the  problem  in  the  con 
crete.  Deplore  it  though  we  may,  it  is  ineradicable 
and  will  endure,  because  it  is  the  barrier  erected  by 
Providence  (or  nature,  as  you  will)  to  prevent  the 
white,  the  black,  the  brown  and  the  yellow  races  of 
men  from  becoming  merged  into  one  mongrel  and  in 
ferior  amalgamate.  Unfortunately  the  negroes  of  the 
United  States,  as  a  result  of  abnormal  conditions,  are 
not  controlled  by  this  normal  race  instinct,  but  are 
filled  with  the  unworthy  desires  of  their  cousins  in 
Cuba,  where,  as  the  popular  song  relates, 

"  Los  negros  quieren  ser  blancos ; 
Los  nmlatos  caballeros."  l 

Both  for  the  sake  of  the  American  people  and  the 

lrrhe  negroes  would  like  to  be  white  men;  the  mulattoea,  white 
men  of  high  degree. 


372  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

alien  race  among  them  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that 
Lincoln's  plan  of  colonizing  the  freedmen  abroad  came 
to  nothing.  In  his  debates  with  Douglas  before  the 
war  he  admitted  that  there  was  a  difference  between 
the  two  races  such  as  would  forever  prevent  their  oc 
cupation  of  a  common  territory  in  a  state  of  social  and 
political  equality, 1  and  to  a  deputation  of  free  negroes 
on  August  14,  1862,  he  said  that  the  only  solution  of 
the  problem  was  the  separation  of  the  races,  referring 
to  his  plan  of  colonizing  the  blacks  in  purchased  Cen 
tral  American  territory.  "  You  and  we  are  different 
races,"  he  said.  "  We  have  between  us  a  broader  dif 
ference  than  exists  between  almost  any  two  races. 
.  .  .  This  physical  difference  is  a  great  disadvan 
tage  to  us  both,  I  think.  Your  race  suffer  very 
greatly,  many  of  them,  by  living  among  us  while  ours 
suffer  from  your  presence.  .  .  .  But  for  your  race 
among  us  there  could  not  be  war.  .  .  .  Even 
when  you  cease  to  be  slaves  you  are  yet  far  removed 
from  being  on  an  equality  with  the  white  race.  You 
are  cut  off  from  many  of  the  advantages  which  the 
other  race  enjoys.  On  this  broad  continent  not  a 
single  man  of  your  race  is  made  the  equal  of  ours. 
Go  where  you  are  treated  the  best,  and  the  ban  is  still 
upon  you.  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this  but  to  pre 
sent  it  as  a  fact.  .  .  .  It  is  better  for  us,  therefore, 
to  be  separated.  .  .  .  There  is  an  unwillingness 
on  the  part  of  our  people,  harsh  as  it  may  be,  for  you 
free  colored  people  to  remain  among  us."  2  In  this  ad- 

1  Lincoln's  Speeches,  Vol.  I,  p.  369. 

2  Henry  J.  Raymond,  Life  and  State  Papers  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
pp.  505-8.     See  also  Lincoln's   Speeches,  Vol.  II,  p.    222,  and   his 
message  to  Congress,  December  3,  1861.     (Messages  and  Documents, 
Government  ed.,  1861,  Vol.  I,  pp.  14-15.) 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  EULE         373 

dress  Lincoln  spoke  of  the  advantages  of  Liberia  and 
described  the  desirable  features  of  the  Central  American 
territory  he  wished  to  secure,  favoring  the  latter  be 
cause  it  was  " nearer  to  us'7  and  on  a  highway  of 
travel.  He  appealed  to  the  negro  men  before  him  to 
interest  themselves  in  the  colonization  plan  for  the 
good  of  both  their  race  and  the  white  people  of 
America. 

But,  yielding  to  the  dominating  sentiment  of  the  day, 
Lincoln  appears  soon  to  have  modified  his  position, 
for  in  a  message  to  Congress  before  the  end  of  the  same 
year  he  gave  his  own  scheme  a  staggering  blow  by  de 
claring  that  the  objections  to  the  free  blacks  remaining 
in  this  country  were  l  i  largely  imaginary,  if  not  some 
times  malicious."  Had  he  lived  and  held  to  his  posi 
tion,  had  he  turned  toward  Africa  as  a  more  suitable 
field  for  colonization,  and  induced  Congress  to  take  up 
the  matter  and  appropriate  ample  funds,  the  exodus 
might  have  been  accomplished  in  the  course  of  years. 
The  desire  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  of  Henry  Clay,  of 
many  of  the  patriot  fathers,  and  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
himself,  in  his  saner  and  unpersuaded  moods,  would 
thus  have  been  fulfilled.  If  this  alien  people  must 
remain  among  us,  its  own  best  interests  demand 
that  it  be  not  congested  in  one  section  but  scattered 
throughout  the  country,  thus  exciting  less  race  preju 
dice  ;  and  the  hope  of  the  South,  industrially  and  in 
all  ways,  is  bound  up  with  a  continuing  efflux  of  blacks 
and  influx  of  whites.  As  for  the  North — after  all  that 
has  happened — it  has  no  right  to  complain  of  a  fairer 
division  of  the  burden,  notwithstanding  the  hostile 
temper  of  its  labor  unions,  the  guardedly  expressed  but 
distinctly  discouraging  attitude  of  its  newspapers  to- 


374  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

ward  negro  immigration  from  the  South,  and  a  chang 
ing  sentiment  among  its  people  which  seems  to  promise 
that  the  long  strife  between  the  sections  over  the  im 
ported  African  is  rapidly  nearing  its  end. 

Stephens' s  speech  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  on 
February  22,  1866,  shows  that  from  the  outset  he  de 
sired  to  see  full  justice  done  the  negroes  by  the  law 
makers  and  the  public  of  his  State  j  but  during  the  re 
construction  era,  when  it  was  his  own  race  that  looked 
in  vain  for  justice,  he,  in  common  with  every  other 
Southern  white  man,  had  reason  to  regret  that  Lin 
coln's  plan  of  colonizing  the  freedmen  abroad  had  not 
been  carried  out.  During  that  era,  however,  there 
was  probably  no  native  white  man  in  Georgia  to  whom 
the  negroes  would  have  listened  with  the  same  patience 
and  respect.  His  influence  on  those  in  his  immediate 
section  was  described  as  "most  beneficent."  l 

An  incident  that  occurred  when  the  blacks  were  no 
longer  in  power  indicates  the  esteem  in  which  Ste 
phens  was  held  by  those  of  his  own  section,  as  well  as 
that  they  now  looked  to  him  as  a  friend.  On  the 
4th  of  July,  1876,  the  negro  Sunday-schools  of 
Taliaferro  and  adjacent  counties,  having  assembled  in 
a  grove  near  Crawfordville  to  celebrate,  expressed  a 
wish  to  march  in  procession  to  " Liberty  Hall"  that 
afternoon  and  sing  for  its  master.  A  cordial  assent 
was  given,  and  Stephens,  then  very  feeble,  was  rolled 
in  his  chair  out  on  the  long  piazza  in  view  of  the  three 
thousand  negroes,  men,  women  and  children,  gathered 
on  the  lawn.  Having  listened  with  great  pleasure  to 
the  hymns  that  were  sung,  he  addressed  the  sable  as 
semblage.  He  * i  advised  them,  cautioned  them,  encour- 
1  Johnston  and  Browne,  p.  533. 


CAEPETBAG  AND  NEGEO  EULE         375 

aged  them"  ;  he  "told  them  of  the  duties  they  owed 
themselves,  of  the  duty  of  educating  their  children  that 
they  might  understand  the  position  in  which  they  were 
placed,  the  new  responsibilities  that  rested  on  them, 
and  the  all-importance  of  a  faithful  and  intelligent 
performance  of  duty."  l  Finally,  the  three  thousand 
negroes  1 1  marched  in  file  past  and  each  touched  the 
feeble  hand  "  of  the  invalid  statesman. 

1  Johnston  and  Browne,  pp.  532,  533. 


CHAPTER  XVin 

LAST  YEARS 

SPEAKING  in  1868  of  Southern  men  of  ability  and 
prominence,  John  Quincy  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  said 
that  "  reconstruction "  had  "  scorned  their  protests, 
repelled  their  aid,  insulted  their  misery,  and  inflicted 
on  them  an  abasement  which  they  felt  to  be  intolerable 
in  posting  over  them  their  slaves  of  yesterday. " 
Under  the  conditions  thus  truly  described,  Alex 
ander  H.  Stephens,  although  desiring  the  best  inter 
ests  not  only  of  his  own  section,  but  of  the  Union  now 
supposed  to  be  restored,  was  compelled  to  play  an  in 
active  role.  Disfranchised,  discredited  and  thrust 
aside,  he  could  do  little  more  than  counsel  his  people 
to  wait  patiently  for  better  days. 

Being  now  too  confirmed  an  invalid  to  resume  active 
practice  at  the  bar,  he  was  called  upon  to  face  a  period 
of  complete  repose,  full  of  terrors  for  a  man  of  his  sleep 
less  intellect  and  consuming  melancholy.  A  corre 
spondent  of  the  Ealeigh,  N.  C. ,  Standard,  of  October, 
1868,  a  "  Radical "  or  Eepublican  organ,  described 
the  Vice-President  of  the  fallen  Confederacy  as  feeble 
and  almost  decrepit.  * '  His  voice  is  shrill  and  cracked. 
His  face  is  ploughed  with  a  thousand  lines  and  wrink 
les  ; "  but  "  his  uneasy  eye  tells  of  a  spirit  still  restless 
and  active."  It  is  easy  to  understand  why  this  restless 
spirit,  this  untiring  brain,  now  turned  to  literature  for 
solace  and  occupation. 


LAST  YEAES  377 

He  set  to  work  on  his  Constitutional  View  of  the  Late 
War  Between  the  States,  a  book  of  1,400  pages  in  two 
octavo  volumes,  completing  it  in  about  three  and  a  half 
years  (1867-70),  although  handicapped  by  frail  health 
and  not  infrequent  severe  attacks  of  illness.  His  re 
plies  to  his  critics  were  later  published  in  a  volume 
entitled  Reviewers  Reviewed.  A  brief  history  of  the 
United  States,  afterward  extensively  employed  in 
Southern  schools,  was  begun  late  in  1870  and  com 
pleted  in  1872.  The  success  of  his  work,  the  royalty 
on  the  sale  of  the  Constitutional  View  alone  amounting 
to  $35,000,  tempted  him  to  further  labors  in  the 
historical  field ;  and  he  undertook  a  History  of  the 
United  States,  which  he  succeeded  in  completing  dur 
ing  the  last  year  of  his  life  and  published  shortly 
before  his  death  in  1883.  But  owing  to  growing  in 
firmities,  the  want  of  the  same  keen  interest  in  a 
subject  in  large  part  already  handled,  and  the  dis 
tractions  of  a  resumed  political  career,  the  book 
lacked  the  vigor  of  his  earlier  effort  and  was  a 
financial  failure. 

The  first  volume  of  his  most  important  work,  the 
Constitutional  View,  is  appropriately  dedicated  to  "  all 
true  friends  of  the  Union  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  throughout  their  entire  limits,  with 
out  regard  to  present  or  past  party  associations ;  and 
to  all  true  friends  of  Constitutional  liberty,  the  world 
over,  now  and  forever."  This  book  is  worth  the  at 
tention  of  the  modern  student  of  history,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  because  it  is  the  ablest  defense  of  the  secession 
of  the  Southern  States  that  has  been  written.  It  will 
also  appeal  to  the  lover  of  home  rule  and  constitu 
tional  government  as  opposed  to  the  Federal  centraliza- 


378  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

tion  of  power  and  the  enlargement  of  Executive  pre 
rogatives,  which  are  noticeable  features  of  our  present 
political  history  as  well  as  of  the  period  in  which 
Stephens  wrote.  This  masterly  presentation  of  its 
subject  is  less  readable  than  it  might  have  been  owing 
to  the  form  of  dialogue  adopted  in  order  to  represent 
fairly  all  sides  of  the  various  controversies,  an  object 
far  more  fully  achieved  than  could  reasonably  be  hoped 
in  a  period  of  such  partisanship  and  bitterness. 

Discussing  the  first  volume  in  April,  1869,  the  dis 
interested  London  Saturday  Eeview  said  : 

"  In  justice  to  a  brave,  high-minded  and  most  unfor 
tunate  people,  and  in  due  regard  to  historical  truth  and 
to  the  interests  of  political  science,  it  is  even  now  worth 
while  to  hear  what  a  scholar,  a  man  of  deep  political 
learning,  of  profound  knowledge  of  constitutional  his 
tory,  of  moderate  opinions  and  temperate  spirit,  has  to 
say  in  defense  of  principles  which,  however  generally 
repudiated  in  1866,  were  as  generally  entertained  ten 
years  before,  and  which  the  South  deemed  worth  up 
holding  with  her  whole  wealth  and  her  best  blood.  Mr. 
Stephens,  if  any  one,  may  be  expected  to  think  and 
speak  fairly  and  impartially  on  this  subject.  He  was 
more  consistent  than  any  Northern  opponent  of  se 
cession  ;  he  is  less  embittered  than  any  Southern 
secessionist.  .  .  . 

"  The  opinions  and  arguments  of  such  a  man  are  en 
titled,  a  priori,  to  respectful  attention ;  when  they  are  so 
just,  so  clear,  so  well  reasoned,  so  amply  supported  by 
authorities  of  the  highest  character  and  of  every  class  as 
we  find  them  in  the  volume  before  us,  they  cannot  but 
assist  us  greatly  in  forming  a  true  judgment  upon  the 
nature  and  merits  of  the  controversy.  ...  A  sov 
ereign  can  have  no  judge,  and  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion  provided  no  means  by  which  one  State  could 
bring  another  to  justice  for  wrong-doing  or  non-fulfill- 


LAST  YEAES  379 

ment  of  engagements.  In  like  manner  there  existed 
no  legal  mode  whereby  the  Federal  government  could 
coerce  a  State  which  should  exercise  the  right  of  sov 
ereignty  to  redress  its  wrongs  under  the  compact  by  re 
nouncing  the  compact  itself.  A  sovereign  power  is  the 
judge  of  its  own  rights.  Its  subjects  must  obey  it  and 
defend  it,  right  or  wrong.  It  follows  therefore  from  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States  that  they  were  entitled  legally 
to  secede,  if  they  chose,  and  that  their  citizens  were 
bound  to  follow  and  to  fight  for  the  choice  of  the  State. 
This  was  the  view  on  which  Stephens  acted  j  and  in 
its  support  he  cites  eminent  authorities.  .  .  .  He 
calls  Daniel  Webster  to  testify  that  the  systematic 
violation  of  the  Constitution  in  the  case  of  fugitive 
slaves  was  alone  a  sufficient  vindication  of  the  total 
repudiation  by  the  South  of  a  compact  which  the 
North  observed  only  so  far  as  she  pleased.  It  is 
impossible,  within  our  limits,  to  give  a  fair  idea  even 
of  the  outlines  of  such  an  argument ;  much  more 
to  convey  a  just  impression  of  the  lucidity,  power  of 
thought,  vast  and  appropriate  reading,  and  vigorous 
reasoning  by  which  it  is  sustained.  It  would  be  diffi 
cult  to  name  a  more  perfect  masterpiece  of  constitu 
tional  reasoning  and  political  disquisition ;  a  work 
which  might  with  greater  advantage  be  placed  in 
the  hands  of  a  young  lawyer,  who  desired  to  see 
how  those  high  questions,  which  are  the  common 
ground  of  the  lawyer,  the  historian  and  the  states 
man,  can  be  treated  by  one  who  combines  the  qualifi 
cations  of  all  three.  The  book  .  .  .  may  be  con 
fidently  recommended  as  indispensable  to  every  one 
who  wishes  really  to  understand  either  the  Federal 
Constitution  or  the  Civil  War ;  and  it  will  be  ranked 
among  the  most  valuable  of  those  materials  which  the 
writers  of  this  age  are  accumulating  for  the  future 
historian  of  America." 

It  might  be  expected  that  a  work  published  in  the 
South' s  darkest  hour,  and  placing  her  defeated  cause 


380  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

in  so  favorable  a  light  before  the  world,  would  be  re 
ceived  in  the  ruined  section  with  universal  gratitude 
as  well  as  admiration.  Yet  the  irony  of  fate  ruled 
that  the  bitterest  attack  on  the  book  and  its  author 
should  be  made  among  the  people  they  defended. 
Even  while  declaring  his  conviction  that  l  i  the  Confed 
erate  cause  was  lost  by  our  own  dissensions,"  Benja 
min  H.  Hill  revived  those  disastrous  dissensions  by 
attacking  Stephens  and  his  history,  and  dragging  into 
public  view  much  that  might  better  have  been  left  to 
oblivion  at  a  time  when  the  ill-starred  Confederate 
States  were  still  prostrate  under  the  desolating  heel  of 
the  negro  and  the  alien. 

The  bitter  controversy  that  followed  reflected  no 
credit  on  either  of  the  two  eminent  Georgians,  and  it 
was  left  to  wiser  citizens  to  entreat  them  to  desist.  It 
may  be  said  in  behalf  of  Stephens  that  being  attacked, 
he  felt  compelled  to  defend  himself.  In  his  paper  on 
the  "Unwritten  History  of  the  Hampton  Eoads  Com 
mission,"  to  which  we  have  referred,  Benjamin  H.  Hill 
virtually  attributed  the  Confederacy's  defeat  to  Ste 
phens' s  arguments  against  the  constitutionality  of 
Confederate  military  laws,  his  attacks  on  the  Davis  ad 
ministration,  and  his  part  in  the  peace  movement  in 
Georgia.  It  was  charged  that  Stephens  could  have 
checked  harmful  activity  on  the  part  of  Governor 
Brown  at  the  critical  hour  of  the  Hampton  Eoads  Com 
mission,  but,  although  urged,  failed  to  interfere,  and 
that  therefore  that  conference  was  worse  than  useless. 
The  paper  declared  that  such  men  as  Stephens  were 
"not  fit"  to  write  Confederate  history;  that  "the 
malcontents  are  not  the  men  to  pass  judgment  on  the 
faithful,"  and  that  "  those  who  were  themselves  notori- 


LAST  YEAES  381 

ously  impractical,  or  whose  zeal,  efficiency,  or  fidelity 
iii  any  form  to  the  cause  was  a  matter  of  debate,  could 
not  agree  with  Mr.  Davis  during  the  war,  and  of  writ 
ing  books  in  their  own  defense  since  the  war  there  is 
no  end."  The  suggestion  breathed  throughout  Hill's 
paper,  though  not  stated  in  set  terms,  was  that  if 
Stephens  was  not  at  heart  a  traitor  to  the  South, 
his  course  was  such  as  to  breed  that  suspicion  in  every 
reflecting  mind.  The  damage  done  the  Confederacy  by 
Stephens  through  his  untimely  ardor  for  strictly  con 
stitutional  government  has  already  been  discussed. 
That  Davis,  Hill  and  others  should  have  been  incensed 
at  his  course  was  natural,  but  there  is  nothing  to  sup 
port,  and  his  whole  life  discountenances,  the  suspicion 
that  he  was  insincere  or  that  he  was  not  eager  for  the 
success  of  the  Confederate  arms,  however  he  might  op 
pose  the  policies  of  the  Davis  administration. 

Stephens  wrote  five  long  communications  to  the 
Augusta  Constitutionalist  in  reply  to  Hill,  and  the  latter 
as  many  more  to  the  Atlanta  Constitution  in  rejoinder. 
As  a  representative  of  the  Davis  administration,  Hill 
had  a  real  grievance,  and  this  gave  his  argument  a 
force  it  would  otherwise  have  lacked.  Stephens  de 
fended  himself  very  ably.  Both  descended  -to  bitter 
personal  attack,  and  betrayed  an  ill-feeling  that  reached 
back  to  the  quarrel  and  challenge  to  a  duel  in  1856. 
Hill's  unfair  assault  on  Stephens  approached  the  ex 
treme  limit  of  vituperation,  as  in  this  passage  of  his 
letter  of  June  16,  1874 — a  masterpiece  of  its  kind  : 
' '  To  what  shall  we  liken  him  ?  We  must  not  blas 
pheme  the  dead  by  hunting  among  them  for  his  model. 
We  will  not  insult  the  living  by  seeking  among  them 
for  his  rival.  We  cannot  libel  the  innocent  unborn 


382  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

by  supposing  that  among  them  he  could  ever  have  an 
imitator.  No  !  this  defamer  of  Davis  and  eulogist  of 
Grant,  this  reckless  accuser  of  despotism  in  the  Con 
federacy  and  ready  apologist  of  usurpations  by  Eadical- 
ism ;  this  pretentious  oracle  of  State  sovereignty,  and 
supple  persecutor  of  manacled  Louisiana  j  this  wicked 
maligner  of  others  and  worshiping  adulator  of  him 
self  j  this  lord  of  slanderers,  king  of  demagogues,  and 
hero  of  marplots  must  be  left  forever  alone— unap 
proached  and  unapproachable — in  the  ghostly  solitude 
of  his  own  irreconcilable  and  anomalous  self,  serene, 
sej,f-adored  and  infamous  ! " 

/  Stephens,  who  had  admired  Grant  personally  since 
/their  meeting  in  the  preliminaries  of  the  Hampton 
Eoads  Conference,  said  in  1873  that  his  greatest  objec 
tion  to  him  as  President  was  ' l  his  rigid  enforcement 
of  the  very  bad  laws  which  malcontent  Eepublicans 
had  carried  through  Congress, — some  of  them  by  fraud 
and  perfidy  as  well  as  usurpation,"  and  that  in  the 
matter  of  Louisiana  not  Grant  himself,  but  those  who 
made  unjust  laws  and  the  courts  that  rendered  wrong 
ful  decisions  were  to  blame.  To  a  man  of  HilPs  tem 
perament,  Stephens' s  policy  during  the  reconstruction 
era  was  likely  at  times  to  suggest  that  of  kissing  the 
hand  which  smites.  ^lt  would  be  more  just  to  describe 
it  as  the  policy  of  the  man  who  is  wise  and  strong 
enough  to  rise  above  the  wounded  pride  of  a  single 
person,  and,  for  the  sake  of  a  whole  people,  to  seek  to 
conciliate  the  conqueror  by  every  means  consistent 
with  honor.  /He  ardently  desired  to  bring  the  es 
tranged  sections  nearer  together  as  soon  as  possible, 
and  therefore  in  1873  favored  war  with  Spain  over  the 
Virginius  affair  as  a  means  to  that  end.  The  war  over 


LAST  YEAES  383 

Cuba,  producing  the  result  he  had  sought,  came  exactly 
twenty -five  years  later.  Stephens'  s  early  policy  of  con 
ciliation,  and  of  urging  all  Southern  men  who  were 
allowed  to  take  part  in  elections  and  accomplish  what 
good  they  might,  was  naturally  criticized  by  the  proud, 
despairing  spirits  who  washed  their  hands  of  every 
thing  and  stood  aloof.  He  was  also  bitterly  accused 
by  those  "New  Departure  "  Democrats  who  supported 
Horace  Greeley  in  1872.  Stephens  opposed  their  policy 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  mistakejx)  sacrifice  true 
Democratic  principles  of  State  rights  and  home  rule 
in  support  of  a. centralist,  even  though  friendly  to  the 
South,  who  could  not  possibly  be  elected,  and  his 
prophecy  that  Greeley  would  not  carry  a  single  North 
ern  State  was  duly  fulfilled.  He  consistently  stood  for 
the  "  straight-out "  Democratic  ticket,  which  avowed 
strict  adherence  to  the  principles  of  Jefferson,  and  was 
represented  by  Charles  O'Connor,  of  New  York,  and 
John  Quincy  Adams,  of  Massachusetts. 

In  1869  Stephens  declined  a  chair  of  political  science  / 
in  the  University  of  Georgia.  In  the  same  year  he 
became  a  cripple,  ever  after  employing  crutches — the 
result  of  an  acute  attack  of  inflammatory  rheumatism, 
aggravated  by  an  accident  (a  heavy  gate  falling  on 
him),  in  which  the  sciatic  nerve  was  injured.  It  was 
expected  that  this,  added  to  his  constitutional  frailty, 
would  end  his  career  ;  yet  such  was  his  energy  that  he 
continued  his  historical  writings,  and  in  the  spring  of 
1871  purchased  an  interest  in  the  Southern  Sun,  pub 
lished  at  Atlanta,  thereafter  devoting  much  labor  to  the 
writing  of  editorials  expressing  his  views  on  the  issues 
of  the  times,  the  greatest  of  which,  in  his  opinion,  was 
not  whether  a  State  had  a  right  to  secede,  but  whether 


384  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

a  State  had  any  rights  which  the  central  government 
iniglit  not  set  aside  at  its  pleasure.  Many  of  these 
editorials,  which  were  always  signed  "  A.  H.  S.,"  were 
several  columns  in  length,  and  one  in  the  issue  of  July 
11,  1871,  filled  five  and  a  half  columns.  Such  ponder 
ous  journalism  could  hardly  be  a  popular  success,  and 
within  less  than  three  years  he  withdrew  from  the  en 
terprise  some  $20,000  poorer  than  at  the  outset.  // 

Stephens  has  been  described,  more  or  less  correctly, 
as  an  u  amiable  egotist,"  and  it  did  not  surprise  his 
friends  when  he  noted  editorially  in  the  Sun  his  own 
movements  to  and  from  "  Liberty  Hall "  and  the  capi 
tal,  as  in  the  article  in  the  issue  of  November  26, 
1872,  discoursing  upon  "Our  Visit  to  Atlanta."  His 
life-long  friend  Eobert  Toombs,  at  this  time  living  in 
retirement  at  Washington,  Ga.,  is  reported  to  have 
commented  :  "Oh,  yes,  that's  the  way  with  Alec— 
always  posing  before  the  public.  He  won't  be  satisfied 
until  he  corrects  the  proofs  of  his  own  obituary." 
This  is  precisely  what  he  did  do  a  few  years  later,  ac 
cording  to  Mr.  Clark  Howell.  Believing  from  the  ac 
counts  of  one  of  his  severe  attacks  that  death  was  near, 
the  editors  of  the  Atlanta  Constitution  prepared  an 
elaborate  obituary  and  biographical  sketch,  and  when 
the  sufferer  unexpectedly  rallied  and  became  fairly 
well  once  more,  this  was  sent  to  him  for  approval  and 
he  cheerfully  corrected  and  returned  it  to  the  publish 
ers,  who,  later  on,  had  they  been  so  minded,  might 
have  " scooped "  their  rivals  with  "The  Only  True 
Obituary  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Corrected  by 
Himself. ' '  Stephens' s  sense  of  humor,  which  was  strik 
ingly  manifested  at  times,  accompanied  him  to  his  last 
illness,  during  which  he  said  to  his  secretary,  who  was 


LAST  YEAES  385 

urging  food  on  him:     "Slidell,  don't  you  know  you 
ought  not  to  feed  a  horse  until  he  whickers  I  " 

The  files  of  the  Southern  Sun  reveal  the  interesting 
fact  that  when,  during  the  Greeley  campaign,  the  con 
troversy  of  that  newspaper  and  the  Constitution  reached 
a  bitter  stage,  Stephens  suddenly  gave  up  his  whole 
editorial  page  to  a  reprint  of  "The  Code  of  Honor,  or 
Eules  for  the  Government  of  Principals  and  Seconds  in 
Duelling,"  by  John  Lyde  Wilson.  An  introductory 
editorial  note  signed  "A.  H.  S.,"  stated:  "We  be 
lieve  the  publication  of  this  '  Code '  at  this  time  is  pe 
culiarly  opportune. ' '  The  frail l  i  mannikin ' '  who  had 
challenged  big  "Ben"  Hill  in  1856  was  still  himself, 
m' spite  of  his  crutches  and  his  roller-chair. 
/  The  death  of  his  beloved  half-brother  and  most  inti 
mate  of  friends,  Judge  Linton  Stephens,  in  the  summer 
of  1872,  was  a  crushing  blow  to  the  invalid  of  "  Liberty 
Hall,"  from  which  he  was  long  in  recovering.  Greater 
distraction  even  than  writing  history  and  political  edi 
torials  was  soon  found  necessary  for  one  who  had  ever 
sought  refuge  from  his  own  consuming  melancholy  in 
an  active  public  life ^  and  in  December  of  the  same 
year,  while  visiting  Atlanta,  he  announced  himself  as 
a  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate  on  the  issue 
between  "straight-out"  Democracy  and  the  "New 
Departure."  But  he  who  might  have  gone  to  the  Sen 
ate  before  the  war  had  not  his  friendship  for  Toombs 
prevented,  and  was  elected  to  the  Senate  in  1866,  but 
was  not  allowed  to  take  his  seat,  was  now  defeated  by 
the  dashing  soldier,  General  John  B.  Gordon.  Nev 
ertheless,  driven  by  his  miseries  and  the  necessity  of 
forgetfulness  in  public  activities,  he  promptly  deter 
mined  to  appear  once  more  in  the  lower  house  of  Con- 


386  ALEXANDEB  H.  STEPHENS 

gress,  and  was  elected,  without  an  opposing  vote,  to  fill 
a  vacancy  that  had  occurred.  The  New  York  Com 
mercial  Advertiser's  comment,  in  February,  1873,  on 
Stephens' s  reappearance  in  Congress,  was  typical  of  the 
dominating  Northern  attitude  throughout  the  recon 
struction  period.  But  for  the  work  of  the  friends  of 
established  institutions  and  a  reluctance  among  all 
thinking  people  to  repudiate  the  Constitution  and  set 
up  an  empire  in  form  as  well  as  in  essence,  the  indica 
tions  are  that  the  impulse  to  hold  the  Southern  States 
as  " dependencies  forever7'  might  have  triumphed. 
Eepresentatives  from  the  South  in  Congress  were 
looked  upon  as  there,  not  of  right,  but  on  sufferance 
through  the  magnanimous  concession  of  the  triumphant 
States  which  alone  were  "  the  nation."  Thus  we  find 
the  Commercial  Advertiser  saying:  "  Alexander  H. 
Stephens  does  not  emulate  the  modesty  of  the  rose. 
He  positively  refuses  to  'pine  upon  the  bush.'  He  is 
not  only  ready  to  be  plucked  but  means  to  oblige  some 
body  to  pluck  him.  He  feels  that  his  dear  Georgia 
cannot  get  along  without  him  at  Washington."  The 
Advertiser  admitted,  however,  that  "this  little  irre-" 
pressible  human  steam  engine,  with  a  big  brain  and 
scarcely  any  body,  is  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
parliamentarians  the  world  has  ever  seen,"  and,  there 
fore,  graciously  consented  to  his  return  to  Congress 
with  a  concluding,  "  Let  him  come  back."/ 

Three  years  later  the  correspondent  of  a  more 
friendly  Northern  newspaper — illustrating  the  grad 
ual  growth  of  a  somewhat  better  state  of  feeling — thus 
described  him  as  he  appeared  in  the  House,  at  a  time 
when  his  physical  sufferings  were  greater  than  usual : 
"  A  little  way  up  the  aisle  sits  a  queer-looking  bundle. 


LAST  YEARS  387 

An  immense  cloak,  a  high  hat,  and  peering  somewhere 
out  of  the  middle  a  thin,  pale,  sad  little  face.  This 
brain  and  eyes  enrolled  in  countless  thicknesses  of 
flannel  and  broadcloth  wrappings  belong  to  Hon.  Alex 
ander  H.  Stephens,  of  Georgia.  How  anything  so 
small  and  sick  -and  sorrowful  could  get  here  all  the 
way  from  Georgia  is  a  wonder.  If  he  were  to  draw 
his  last  breath  any  instant  you  would  not  be  surprised. 
If  he  were  laid  out  in  his  coffin  he  need  not  look  any  dif 
ferent,  only  then  the  fires  would  have  gone  out  in 
those  burning  eyes.  Set,  as  they  are,  in  the  wax- 
white  face,  they  seem  to  burn  and  blaze.  Still,  on  the 
countenance  is  stamped  that  pathos  of  long-continued 
suffering  which  goes  to  the  heart.  That  he  is  here  at 
all  to  offer  the  counsels  of  moderation  and  patriotism 
proves  how  invincible  is  the  soul  that  dwells  in  his 
shrunken  and  aching  frame." 

V During  this,  his  second  career  in  Congress,  Stephens 
was  handicapped  by  the  fact  that  he  came  from  a  dis 
credited  and  disconsidered  section,  but  he  none  the 
less  boldly  championed  the  Constitutional  rights  of 
the  States  as  against  the  aggressions  of  the  Federal 
government.  He  ably  opposed  on  Constitutional 
grounds  as  an  invasion  of  State  jurisdiction,  the  Civil 
Eights  Bill,  the  object  of  which,  briefly  stated,  was  to 
force  the  whites  of  the  South,  on  pain  of  heavy  fine, 
not  only  to  sit  beside  the  blacks  in  public  conveyances, 
in  theatres,  in  schools,  in  churches,  and  to  eat  with 
them  in  hotels,  but  to  lie  beside  them  in  cemeteries.1 

1  a .  .  .  or  any  cemetery  .  .  .  that  shall  make  any  dis 
tinction  as  to  admission  or  accommodation, "  etc.  The  framers  of 
this  bill  stopped  just  short  of  providing  for  the  intimate  relations 
of  the  two  races  in  the  world  to  come.  Not  until  1883  was  this  act 
declared  to  be  unconstitutional. 


388  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

Stephens  pointed  to  the  decision  handed  down  by  the 
Supreme  Court  in  the  '  '  Slaughter  House  Cases, "  affirm 
ing  that  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  did  not  transfer 
the  security  and  protection  of  civil  rights  from  the 
States  to  the  Federal  government,  nor  bring  the  do 
main  of  those  rights  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Congress ; 
but  that  all  the  essential  features  of  the  original  Fed 
eral  system  remained  unchanged.  And  further  : 


"  Interference  by  the  Federal  government,  even  if 
the  power  were  clear  and  indisputable,  would  be  against 
the  very  genius  and  entire  spirit  of  our  whole  system. 
If  there  is  one  truth  which  stands  out  prominently 
above  all  others  in  the  history  of  these  States,  it  is  that 
the  germinal  and  seminal  of  American  Constitutional 
liberty  is  the  absolute  unrestricted  right  of  State  self- 
government  in  all  purely  internal  affairs.  The  first 
union  of  the  Colonies,  from  which  sprung  the  union  of 
the  States,  was  by  joint  action  to  secure  this  right  of 
local  self-government  for  each.  It  was  when  the  char 
tered  rights  of  Massachusetts  were  violated  by  a  Brit 
ish  parliament  that  the  cry  first  went  up  from  Virginia, 
1  The  cause  of  Boston  is  the  cause  of  us  all  ! 7  This  led 
to  the  declaration  and  establishment  of  the  independ 
ence,  not  of  the  whole  people  of  the  united  colonies  as 
one  mass,  but  of  the  independence  of  each  of  the  origi 
nal  thirteen  colonies,  then  declared  by  themselves 
to  be,  and  afterward  acknowledged  by  all  foreign 
powers  to  be,  thirteen  separate  and  distinct  States. 
.  .  .  Since  the  passions  and  prejudices  which  at 
tended  the  [late  armed]  conflict  are  fast  passing  away, 
the  period  has  now  come  for  the  descendants  of  a  com 
mon  ancestry,  in  all  the  States  and  sections  of  the 
country,  to  return  to  the  original  principles  of  their 
fathers,  with  the  hopeful  prospect  of  a  higher  and 
brighter  career  in  the  future  than  any  heretofore 
achieved  in  the  past.  On  such  return  depends,  in  my 


LAST  YEAES  389 

judgment,  not  only  the  liberty  of  the  white  and  colored 
races  on  this  continent,  but  the  best  hopes  of  man 
kind." 

This  appeal  did  not  receive  its  desired  answer,  how 
ever,  until  1883,  nine  years  later,  when  the  second 
Civil  Eights  Act  was  finally  declared  unconstitutional. 
Meanwhile — for  even  so  serious  a  matter  as  an  invasion 
of  the  Constitutional  rights  of  the  States  may  have  its 
humorous  side — ignorant,  blustering  Southern  negroes 
continued  to  prove  that  they  were  "as  good"  as  the 
most  intelligent  and  gently  nurtured  whites  and  "a 
heap  better' n  po'  buckra  "  by  pointing  to  the  fact  that 
"de  Silver  Eights  bill  done  pass'." 

A  bit  of  legislation  with  which  Stephens  was  act 
ively  connected  at  this  period,  and  for  which  he  was 
much  censured,  was  the  "salary  grab,"  or  the  increas 
ing  of  the  salaries  of  Congressmen  and  doubling  that  of 
the  President,  his  arguments  in  favor  of  the  measure 
being  sound  and  convincing.  He  was  also  criticized 
in  the  South  for  advocating  acquiescence  in  the  parti 
san  decision  of  the  Electoral  Commission  in  1876  ;  yet 
any  other  policy  would  have  been  madness,  for  the 
dominating  majority  in  the  North  would  not  have 
suffered  the  presence  of  a  Democratic  President  in  the 
White  House  at  that  period  and  only  a  military  con 
queror  could  have  seated  him.  This  is  clear  from  the 
suppressed  excitement  caused  by  the  election  of  Cleve 
land  even  as  late  as  1884.  Stephens  was  also  the  ob 
ject  of  censure  because  of  his  action  a,t  the  close  of  the 
session  of  1874-5  in  voting  to  take  up  and  adopt  the 
report  of  the  Committee  on  Louisiana  Affairs,  but  his 
vote,  which  turned  the  scale,  brought  up  the  considera 
tion  of  that  report  and  was  instrumental  in  leading  to 


390  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

the  unanimous  condemnation  by  the  House  of  the  in 
famous  returning  board  of  the  carpetbag  regime  in  that 
afflicted  commonwealth. 

*  An  important  event  in  Stephens' s  second  career  in 
Congress  under  the  changed  conditions  was  his  speech 
on  February  12,  1878,  in  the  sixty-seventh  year  of  his 
age,  at  the  uncovering  of  Carpenter's  painting,  "The 
Signing  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation."  The 
invitation  and  his  acceptance  were  significant  signs 
of  a  real  movement  in  the  direction  of  that  reunion 
and  fraternity  which  he  so  greatly  desired.  Among 
the  congratulatory  letters  following  his  i '  patriotic  ad 
dress"  was  one  from  President  Barnard,  of  Columbia 
College,  which  read,  in  part :  "  It  is  indeed  a  marvel 
ous  thing  how,  after  her  trials,  the  South  still  con 
tinues  to  maintain  her  noble  preeminence  in  statesman 
ship  and  in  moral  dignity  ;  and  still  more  marvelous, 
perhaps,  that  one  who  had  been  so  conspicuous  in 
the  councils  of  the  nation  before  the  war,  and  also 
during  the  progress  of  that  painful  struggle  had 
been  identified  with  equal  prominence  with  the 
Southern  cause,  should  continue  after  all  to  com 
mand  equally,  North  and  South,  a  homage,  a  re 
spect,  and  a  confidence  which  are  awarded  by  the  peo 
ple  to  hardly  any  other."  In  intent,  and  in  large 
part  in  performance,  Stephens  may  with  propriety  be 
described  as  the  Henry  Clay,  the  patriotic  peace 
maker,  of  this  troublous  period. 

In  1882,  having  at  last  retired  from  Congress  at  the 
age  of  seventy,  Stephens  was  persuaded  to  become  a 
candidate  for  governor  of  his  native  State.  Unsatisfied 
ambition  was  charged  upon  him  by  his  opponents,  but 
his  impelling  motive  was  doubtless  the  same  as  always 


LAST  YEAES  391 

— to  occupy  his  mind  and  escape  from  himself  in  pub 
lic  activities.  He  was  still  an  Orestes  driven  by  the 
furies  of  restless  melancholy.  But  if  he  had  foreseen 
the  strength  and  bitterness  of  the  opposition  he  would 
probably  have  refrained.  His  war  and  reconstruction 
records  were  intemperately  and  too  often  unjustly  at 
tacked.  The  Macon  Telegraph  tauntingly  inquired  of 
the  Atlanta  Constitution  if  it  was  "  charmed"  with 
Stephens' s  contributions  during  reconstruction  "  to 
ward  the  deliverance  of  Georgia  from  the  flies  and  the 
frogs  and  lice  and  other  vermin  that  were  spewed  into 
our  midst  by  the  enemies  of  our  rights  and  liberties." 
It  was  also  objected  that  he  was  too  weak  and  old — 
which  was  true  enough — and  he  was  not  infrequently 
referred  to  as  "  The  Roller- chair."  In  some  instances 
he  was  opposed  pal^Ty'15e^ause'"*6Lis  nomination  inter 
ested  and  seemed  to  please  Northern  editors,  this  being 
interpreted  as  a  sign  that  his  fidelity  to  his  own  section 
might  justly  be  questioned. 

•  Cut  to  the  soul  by  the  unexpected  strength  and  bitter 
temper  of  the  opposition— having  been  led  to  look  for 
virtual  unanimity  in  his  favor— Stephens  imposed 
upon  himself  the  heavy  task  of  pleasing  all  factions  by 
the  superiority  and  justice  of  his  administration.  It 
was  conceded  that  he  made  a  good  governor  during 
the  short  time  allowed  him  (he  was  inaugurated  in  the 
autumn  of  1882  and  died  early  in  1883),  but  the  effort 
of  his  great  will  to  rouse  his  failing  energies  and  rise 
to  the  occasion  imposed  too  severe  a  tax  on  his  frail 
body.  Instead  of  holding  the  reins  of  government  at 
Atlanta  and  wrestling  with  self-seeking  politicians,  he 
should  now  have  been  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  peace 
and  rest  of  " Liberty  Hall"  which  outraged  nature  so 


392  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS 

piteously  demanded  ;  yet  no  one  ever  desired  to  die  in 
harness  more  sincerely  than  he.  His  final  collapse 
was  attributed  by  his  physician  to  the  constant  and 
excessive  overtaxing  of  his  brain.  He  died  on  Sun 
day,  March  4,  1883. 

A  great  life,  full  of  tragedy  both  public  and  private, 
yet  also  full  of  triumph  and  of  usefulness,  was  ended. 
The  Latin  phrase,  u  Non  sibi,  sed  aliis,"  on  the  tomb 
of  Georgia's  " great  commoner"  at  Crawford ville,  is 
more  than  official  eulogy.  Though  a  sufferer  in  body 
and  spirit  throughout  life,  though  the  victim  of  ills 
which  only  through  great  courage  and  patience  could 
be  endured,  he  furnished  innumerable  proofs  of  an 
unselfish  and  high  devotion  to  other  than  self— to 
friends,  neighbors,  to  all  in  need,  to  his  State,  his  sec 
tion,  the  country  and  the  public  at  large.  His  religion, 
which  was  simple  and  genuine,  may  be  described  in 
the  single  phrase,  character  is  salvation.  This  was 
illustrated  when,  during  his  last  illness,  prayer  and 
Bible  reading  at  his  bedside  were  proposed.  He 
objected,  not  to  these  things  in  themselves,  but  to  them 
as  suggesting  a  "  death  -bed  repentance,"  explain 
ing  :  "I  have  made  it  the  rule  of  my  life  to  live 
each  day  as  if  it  were  to  be  my  last.  In  the  heat  of 
politics  I  may  have  sometimes  forgotten  myself,  but  I 
am  no  better  to-day  on  my  death-bed  than  I  have  tried 
to  be  every  day  of  my  life,  and  I  have  no  special 
preparations  to  make  and  no  special  pleas  to  offer." 

The  last  rites  were  attended  by  all  the  dignity  with 
which  a  great  State  could  invest  the  observances  in 
honor  of  its  deceased  chief  magistrate.  Many  thou 
sands  of  both  races  viewed  the  body  as  it  lay  in  state 
in  the  capitol.  The  memorial  was  a  notable  gathering 


LAST  YEAES  393 

of  statesmen  and  prominent  citizens.  Kobert  Toombs 
wept  as  he  praised  his  life-long  friend.  He  declared 
that  Stephens  always  dared  to  follow  his  convictions, 
whatever  the  consequences,  and  recalled  how  he  had 
said  after  the  fall  of  the  Confederacy  :  "  I  am  old  and 
weak  in  bodily  infirmity,  but  I  have  done  my  duty  to 
God  and  my  country,  and  I  am  ready  for  whatever  fate 
may  be  assigned  to  me.'7  Of  the  many  tributes  of 
speakers  at  the  many  memorial  gatherings  in  Southern 
cities,  of  the  public  estimate  shown  in  the  resolutions 
of  State  legislatures  and  of  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  it  is  unnecessary  to  speak  here. 

Though  not  a  source  of  strength  to  the  warring  Con 
federacy,  Alexander  H.  Stephens  served  the  South 
well  before  the  great  crisis,  and  after  it  his  wisely 
directed  efforts  were  no  small  factor  among  the 
forces  that  brought  to  an  end  the  era  of  passion  and 
despotism.  Of  his  wider  usefulness,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  thanks  of  all  American  patriots  are  due 
to  him  as  an  untiring  champion  of  Constitutional  gov 
ernment  and  home  rule  within  the  States,  as  opposed 
to  threatening  encroachments  of  the  Federal  power. 
For  these  he  wrought  mightily  when  they  were  most 
imperiled,  and  the  possible  day  when  the  republic  of 
North  America  shall  be  merged  into  the  all  of  empire 
except  the  name  has  been  made  more  distant  as  a  result 
of  his  efforts. 

The  heritage  of  the  American  people  is  greatness, 
even  though  new  l  i  world-power ' '  responsibilities 
threaten  the  integrity  of  our  early  institutions,  even 
though  the  individual  liberty  of  the  past  be  impaired 
by  complex  modern  conditions  of  industrialism  and 
finance.  Stephens  was  ever  and  would  be  still  an  opti- 


394  ALEXANDEE  H.  STEPHENS 

mist,  although  to  the  end  he  was  pursued  by  the  fear 
that  during  the  fifteen  years  of  revolution  from  1861 
to  1876  the  cause  of  Constitutional  government  in  this 
country  had  received  a  blow  from  which  it  would 
never  recover.  It  may  be  that  the  fathers  of  the 
Federated  American  republic  would  confess  to  similar 
fears  for  the  future  could  they  know  of  the  present 
tendencies  toward  a  greater  extension  of  the  Federal 
power  at  the  expense  of  the  States,  as  well  as  an  ex 
pansion  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  Executive  at  the  cost 
of  the  coordinate  branches  of  the  government,  and 
that,  moreover,  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  republic  in 
our  time  is  also  the  protector  of  San  Domingo,  the 
suzerain  of  Cuba,  the  virtual  supervisor  of  Latin - 
America,  and  the  imperial  overlord  of  Tutuila, 
Guam,  Porto  Eico,  and  the  thousand  islands  of  the 
Philippines. 


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INDEX 


ABOLITIONISTS,  agents  of  in 
Georgia,  41 ;  repudiate  the 
Constitution,  54  ;  demand 
Northern  secession,  97,  108- 
109,  121-123  ;  radical  utter 
ances  of,  120-123 ;  their  law 
lessness,  126-127;  agree  with 
secessionists  ' '  in  all  points 
except  one,"  108;  date  of 
abolition  in  New  York,  59, 
128. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  94, 
369. 

Adams,  John,  73,  203. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  73,  203. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  2d,  352, 
376,  384. 

Adams,  Samuel,  200. 

Americans,  a  conquering  peo 
ple,  83-84 ;  their  chief  magis 
trate  the  imperial  overlord  of 
distant  possessions,  394. 

Ames,  Fisher,  200,  207. 

Anderson,  Robert,  244. 

Anti-Slavery,  societies  and 
movements  South,  57-58. 

BABTOW,  FRANCIS  S.,  176, 179. 

Beauregard,  General  P.  G.  T., 
244. 

Benjamin,  Judah  P.,  55,  270, 
298. 

Berrien,  John  M.,  73-74. 

Elaine,  James  G.,  49,  234,  360. 

Blair,  F.  P.,  Jr.,  286. 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  Sr.,  his  mis 
sion  to  Richmond,  328-330, 
334. 

Breckinridge,  John  C.,  153, 
176. 


Brown,  John,  138,  157. 

Brown,  Joseph  E.,  161;  seizes 
Fort  Pulaski  three  months 
before  Sumter  is  fired  on, 
173-174 ;  seizure  of  ships  at 
Savannah,  174-176,  179,  209, 
322,  338;  reply  to  Sherman 
as  to  separate  peace  for 
Georgia,  323-324. 

Buchanan,  James,  105-106, 
138  ;  message  rebuking 
Northern  States  for  Constitu 
tion-nullifying  enactments, 
168-169,  216. 

Burlingame,  Anson  P.,  121. 

CABOT,  GEORGE,  207-208,  212. 
Calhoun,   John  C.,   33,  43,  58, 

77.  92,  96,  103  ;  complains  of 

nullification   in  North,  104  ; 

124,  129,  131,  154-155,   162, 

210,  216. 
Campbell,     Justice    John    A., 

241,  330,  332,  335-336. 
Chamberlain,  D.  H.,  352,  356, 

363. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  171. 
Clay,  Cassius  M.,  54,  123-124, 

249. 
Clay,    Clement    C.,    258,    261, 

343. 
Clay,  Henry,  15,  32,  58,  72,  91, 

96,   103,   106,   112,  124,  373, 

390. 

Clinton,  George,  194. 
Cobb,  Howell,   110,    111,  178- 

179. 

Cobb,  T.  R.  R.,  39,  179. 
Collins,  Thomas,  194. 
Colquitt,  Walter  T.,  45. 


400 


INDEX 


Compromise  of  1850,  103,  112, 
117,  120,  131-132,  154. 

Cone,  Judge  F.  H.,  39,  87-88. 

Confederacy,  Northern,  206- 
208,  211-213. 

Confederacy,  Southern,  pro 
posed  in  1850,  107-116 ;  Con 
federacy  of  1861-5,  170, 
176,  185;  its  small  popula 
tion  compared  with  the 
North,  184,  227,  254,  256, 
257 ;  its  handicaps,  251-289 ; 
its  Constitution,  230-231 ; 
adoption  recommended  in 
North,  237;  its  early  suc 
cesses  in  the  field,  244-245; 
outclassed  in  numbers  and 
resources,  254-256,  310 ;  Tory 
and  half-hearted  elements, 
255-256 ;  privations  during 
war,  258-259,  278  ;  Richmond 
bread-riot,  260  ;  hungry  sol 
diers,  261-263;  problem  of 
caring  for  Federal  prisoners, 
264-265  ;  classes  exempted 
from  military  service,  266- 
269;  desertion  and  lack  of 
devotion,  266-267,  269;  pa 
triotism,  268,  280-283  ;  pro 
posed  enlistment  of  slaves, 
269-272  ;  the  handicap  of  the 
negro,  269-270 ;  the  defensive 
policy,  276-277 ;  internal  dis 
sension,  278-280,  308,  312- 
314 ;  chief  monument  to  Con 
federate  valor,  280;  women 
of,  280-283;  devastation  by 
enemy,  283-288  ;  financial 
embarrassments,  300;  heavy 
war  tax,  301;  cotton  "fam 
ine"  policy,  303-306;  Geor 
gia's  peace  resolutions,  314- 
320  ;  secession  from  threat 
ened,  279,  313-314,  322 ;  col 
lapse  in  sight,  325 ;  Hampton 
Roads  Conference  a  confession 
of  despair,  329-330,  339  ;  and 
accomplishes  nothing,  340 ; 


exchange  of  prisoners  at  last 
secured,  338-339  ;  the  end, 
341-342. 

Confederation,  Articles  of,  178- 
179,  192-193,  195,  200. 

Constitution,  the  Federal, 
slavery-protecting,  59,  104- 
106,  252  ;  a  compromise,  190- 
191,  252;  nullification  of, 
125-126,  157,  169,  186,  226 ; 
compared  with  Articles  of 
Confederation,  192-193,  194  ; 
a  Federal  "compact,"  195- 
196,  202 ;  its  limited  powers, 
196-200,  203,  206,  209,225- 
226. 

Constitutional  Union  party,  its 
triumph  over  secessionists  in 
1851,  111,  117-118. 

Con  way,  Moncure  D.,  54,  122- 
123. 

Cotton  question,  Stephens's 
view  of,  302;  failure  of  the 
famine  policy,  303-306 ;  the 
export  plan,  302-303,  305; 
vast  store  confiscated  by  the 
United  States  government, 
303. 

Crawford,  George  W.,  178. 

Creek  Indian  troubles,  214,  215. 

Crittenden,  John  J.,  91,  171. 

Curry,  J.  L.  M.,  230,  236-237. 

D'AMPUDIA,  PEDEO,  78. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  44,  58,  124 ; 
taught  secession  at  West 
Point,  219-221 ;  President  of 
Confederacy,  237-239,  248, 
249;  checks  bread-riot,  260- 
261;  appeals  to  planters  to 
raise  food  only,  267;  against 
class  exemptions,  268-269 ; 
favors  enlistments  of  negroes, 
270 ;  character  and  powers, 
273-274  ;  letter  to  Pope  Pius 
IX,  276  ;  criticism  of,  in  the 
South,  278-279  ;  accused  of 
dictatorship,  312-314,  327; 


INDEX 


401 


aa  to  joint  expedition  into 
Mexico,  330-332  ;  object  in 
Hampton  Roads  Conference, 
331 ;  no  commitments  with 
foreign  powers,  328-329 ;  last 
appeal,  340-341;  a  prisoner 
of  state,  343-344. 

DeTocqueville,  Alexis,  Democ 
racy  in  America,  23,  32,  61- 
63,  221-223. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  51,  131, 
153,  176. 

ELLIOTT,  BISHOP  STEPHEN,  in 
structions  to  diocese  in  event 
of  secession,  228. 

Ellsworth,  Oliver,  195, 196, 199. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  123. 

FEDERALISTS,  the,  secession 
plots  of,  109,  206-209,  211. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  as  trader 
in  slaves,  128. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  execrated 
by  Abolitionists,  121  ;  nulli 
fied  by  Northern  States,  104- 
106,  125-126 ;  clause  of  Con 
stitution  on  which  based, 
124;  reprisal  proposed  in 
South,  160-161. 

GARRISON,  WILLIAM  LLOYD, 
his  disunion  sentiment  121- 
123 ;  denounces  and  publicly 
burns  the  Constitution,  122. 

Gathings,  James  J.,  robbed  by 
carpetbaggers,  364-365. 

Georgia  Resolutions  of  1850, 
remonstrance  to  the  Northern 
States  and  threat  of  secession 
as  a  last  resort,  107,  112-116, 
118. 

Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  121. 

Gorsuch,  Edward,  killed  by 
Abolitionists  while  pursuing 
his  escaped  slaves,  126-127. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  283-284,  288,325, 
359,  363,  369,  382. 


Greeley,  Horace,  121,  224-225, 

369,  383. 
Griswold,  Roger,  207-208,  213. 

HALLECK,  HENRY  W.,  284- 
285,  288,  321. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  59,  182, 
195,  198,  201-202,  206-207. 

Hancock,  John,  197,  200. 

Hartford  Convention,  109,  208- 
209,  211-213. 

Hayne,  Robert  Young,  210. 

Helper,  Hinton  Rowan,  54,  139- 
141. 

Henry,  Patrick,  56,  190-192, 
198,  201,  204. 

Herbert,  Hilary  A.,  360. 

Hill,  Benjamin  H.,  refuses  to 
fight  Stephens,  85-87;  for 
Union,  117,  179,  183;  on 
treatment  of  prisoners,  264 ; 
on  Hampton  Roads  Com 
mission,  331-332 ;  attacks 
Stephens's  record,  380-382. 

Howard,  O.  O.,  286-287. 

Hunter,  R.  M.  T.,  330,  332, 
336-337. 

IMMIGRATION,  influence  of,  on 
centralizing  tendencies  of  a 
semi-Europeanized  North, 
217. 

JACKSON,  ANDREW,  223. 

Jackson,  H.  R.,  174-175. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  favors  eman 
cipation  and  deportation  of 
slaves,  58-59,  373;  predicts 
that  negro  will  wreck  the 
Union,  252  ;  on  the  Constitu 
tion,  192 ;  nullification,  204- 
205 ;  right  of  revolution,  225  ; 
his  party  of  individualism  and 
human  rights,  205-206,  209 ; 
its  growth,  208. 

Jenkins,  Charles  J.,  117. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  230,  349, 
351 ;  classes  denied  citizen- 


402 


INDEX 


ship  in  his  amnesty  proclama 
tion,  353-354. 

Johnson,  Herschel  V.,  85,  179- 
180,  183,  346. 

Johnston,  Joseph  E.,  219,  220, 
302. 

KANSAS-NEBRASKA  bill,  131- 

136,  154. 
Know-Nothing  party,  119,  138. 

LAUBENS,  HENRY,  56. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  taught  secession 
at  West  Point,  220;  on  his 
suffering  soldiers,  261-262  ; 
recommends  negro  enlist 
ments,  271 ;  estimates  of,  by 
Wolseley  and  Eoosevelt,  280  ; 
checks  flow  of  cotton  across 
lines,  305;  surrender,  325, 
341. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  moved  by 
Stephens's  eloquence,  40 ; 
favors  deportation  of  negroes, 
119,  143,  372-373  ;  would  re 
imburse  slave-owners,  130, 
337-340;  his  vote  in  1860, 
153  ;  his  unavowed  purpose, 
159,  160,  273 ;  his  evasive  let 
ter  to  Stephens,  165;  a  shrewd 
politician,  166,  209,  241-243 ; 
246,  249,  266;  employment 
of  negro  question  to  weaken 
South,  272-273;  denounced 
as  a  dictator,  274,  292-293, 
308,  314-315,  316-317;  his 
masked  design  in  the  Blair 
mission,  328-329,  334  ;  at  the 
Hampton  Roads  Conference, 
332-340  ;  characteristic  jokes, 
332-333  ;  sympathy  for  fallen 
South,  339  ;  aimed  at  limited 
enfranchisement  of  blacks, 
357  ;  and  immediate  restora 
tion  of  Southern  States,  358. 

Livingston,  William,  194- 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  208-209, 
212-213. 


Lowndes,  Rawlins,  211. 
Lyons,  Lord,  299-300. 

MADISON,  JAMES,  against 
slavery,  56,  60;  on  absence 
of  term  "  slave  "  in  Constitu 
tion,  124;  on  limited  powers 
of  Federal  government,  191, 
196,  202  ;  opposed  to  Hamil 
ton,  206. 

Mann,  Horace,  123. 

Marshall,  John,  129,  189,  191. 
201. 

Mason,  George,  56,  191,  204. 

Mason,  James  Murray,  298- 
299. 

Maury,  Dabney  H.,  220. 

Memminger,  Charles  G.,  303. 

Missouri  Compromise,  51,  92, 
102,  154. 

Monroe,  James,  56,  60,  73. 

Monroe  Doctrine  and  Blair 
mission,  329-338. 

Morgan,  Edwin  Dennison,  174- 
176. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  192,  202. 

Morton,  Oliver  P.,  his  policy  of 
the  black  heel  on  the  white 
neck,  352. 

NASHVILLE  Convention  of  1850, 
threatening  secession,  97, 
98,  109. 

Negroes  (slave), declared  "mer 
chandise  ' '  by  English  Coun 
cil,  55;  both  "persons  and 
property,"  in  Hamilton's 
view,  59  ;  in  the  North,  59, 
60-63,  102, 128 ;  in  the  South, 
59,  60-62,  99-102,  129-130, 
140-141,  145-147;  slave  rep 
resentation,  59;  civilized  by 
slavery,  60-61  ;  an  asset  for 
the  North  only  during  war, 
269-270,  272-273;  proposed 
enlistment  of  by  South,  269- 
272;  sleeping  tiger  not  yet 


INDEX 


403 


awake,  282 ;  fidelity  of  slaves, 
350. 

Negroes  (free),  in  the  North, 
102;  in  the  South  of  1850, 
102;  more  crime  among,  in 
North  than  South,  129;  the 
quarrel  of  a  century  over, 
149;  in  Confederate  army, 
272  ;  the  negro  problem,  119, 
123,  143,  371-372 ;  Lincoln's 
joke,  333;  horrors  of  negro 
rule,  352-368;  legislators  of 
type  found  in  Congo  jungles, 
366  ;  their  heads  turned,  367- 
368,  389;  the  hope  of  the 
South  in  outflow  of  blacks, 
373. 

Nisbet,  Eugenius  A.,  179,  181. 

Nullification  at  the  North,  Mas 
sachusetts  resolutions,  51-54 ; 
nullifying  enactments  of 
many  States,  104-106,  125- 
126  ;  Buchanan  on,  168-169; 
right  of  widely  claimed,  203- 
220;  in  Pennsylvania,  214; 
Maine,  215;  among  Aboli 
tionists,  97,  108-109,  121- 
123. 

Nullification  at  the  South,  in 
Georgia,  32,  214-215;  South 
Carolina,  32,  49;  Virginia 
and  Kentucky,  203-205  ;  Ala 
bama,  215 ;  Jefferson  favor 
ing,  204-206. 

PARK,  MUNGO,  on  character  of 
slaves  brought  to  America, 
60-61. 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  191,  201. 

Pendleton,  Philip  C.,  effect  on 
his  newspaper  of  tyrannical 
order  of  General  Pope,  362. 

"  Personal  Liberty ''  enactments 
of  the  Northern  States  nulli 
fying  Constitutional  mandate 
as  to  surrender  of  fugitive 
slaves,  104-106,  125-126  ;  the 
law  in  Massachusetts,  125. 


Phillips,  Wendell,  121. 
Pickering,    Timothy,    206-207, 

212-213. 

Pinckney,  Charles  C.,  202. 
Polk,  James  K.,  75-83. 
Pulaski,    Fort,    captured   three 

mouths  before  Surater,  173- 

174  ;  cotton  allowed  to  pass, 

305. 

QUINCY,  JOSIAH,  54,  210. 

RANDOLPH,  EDMUND,  57,  191, 
195,  202. 

Randolph,  John,  of  Roanoke, 
56,  60 ;  compared  with 
Stephens,  68,  70,  71. 

Rawle,  William,  217-221. 

Reagan,  John  H.,  343. 

Reconstruction,  refinement  of 
cruelty,  351  ;  carpetbag  and 
negro  regime  an  orgy  of  cor 
ruption,  352-368 ;  vast  extent 
of  disfranchisement  of  whites, 
353-356 ;  armed  negroes, 
356  ;  robberies,  363-365 ; 
state  treasuries  gutted  by  the 
thieves,  365-367 ;  insolence 
of  blacks,  367-368 ;  downfall 
of  the  bayonet-protected  fab 
ric,  369-370. 

Russell,  W.  H.,  on  the  men  in 
the  convention  of  seceded 
States,  232. 

SCOTT,  DEED,  138,  148. 

Scott,  Winfield  T.,  117-118, 
142. 

Secession,  the  right  of,  211, 
218,  222-223,  224-226,  186- 
226,  379;  threatened  in  New 
England  in  1803-4,  206-208  ; 
in  same  in  1808,  209-211 ;  in 
same  in  1812-14,  211-213  ; 
by  Josiah  Quincy  in  1811, 
210  ;  by  Daniel  W  e  b- 
ster  in  1812,  210-212  ;  by 
Massachusetts  in  1843-5, 


404 


INDEX 


51-54 ;  proposed  in  South  in 
1850-1,  107-116;  urged  by 
Abolitionists,  108-109,  121- 
123;  taught  at  West  Point 
Military  Academy,  217-221 ; 
secession  of  Southern  States, 
170,  184-185;  of  Georgia, 
176-185. 

Seward,  William  H.,  124.  131, 
143,  240-243,  329,  334-335; 
willing  to  pay  for  slaves  to 
stop  war,  338. 

Sheridan,  Philip  H.,  283,  289. 

Sherman,  William  T.,  284-289, 
299,  321-322,  325. 

Slavery,  early  objection  to,  in 
South,  54-59 ;  industrial 
handicap  and  injury  to  poor 
whites,  140-143,  158,  233  ; 
questionable  advantage  of, 
129-130;  the  brighter  side, 
60-63,  99-100,  129-130;  its 
defense  on  Biblical  grounds, 
145-147 ;  a  curse  to  the  South, 
57,  139-143,  149  ;  North  also 
responsible,  59,  60-63,  102, 
128,  338 ;  question  of  com 
pensated  emancipation,  130, 
337-340. 

Slave-trade,  reopening  of,  urged, 
147-149;  Rhode  Island's 
slave-ships,  56 ;  smuggling, 
148. 

Southern  Rights  party,  40,  42, 
65;  of  1850-1,  110;  anti- 
Union  utterances  of  its  news 
papers,  110-111  ;  defeated  by 
Southern  Unionists,  111,  118. 

State  sovereignty,  the  question 
of,  186-226,  244;  one  disease 
of  which  Confederacy  died, 
323. 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  birth 
of,  16 ;  boyhood,  17-25  ;  col 
lege  life,  25-29;  school 
teacher  and  law-student,  30; 
admitted  to  bar,  31;  uuder- 
size  and  appearance,  30,  33, 


40,  68-70,  376,  387;  ill 
health,  33-34,  41,  70;  con 
suming  melancholy,  33-34, 
35 ;  friend  of  the  helpless, 
35-38 ;  straits  and  successes 
as  young  lawyer,  35-40 ;  early 
assertion  of  right  of  secession, 
31,  41-42,  65-67;  elected  to 
legislature,  41 ;  friendship  for 
Toombs,  41-42,  385  ;  candi 
date  for  Congress,  44  ;  debate 
with  Colquitt,  45 ;  jokes  of 
the  campaign,  44-46  ;  goes  to 
Congress,  48  ;  for  annexation 
of  Texas,  49-51 ;  speech  on, 
63-67;  newspaper  estimates 
of,  68-71,  386-387;  abilities 
as  a  debater  and  orator,  72; 
on  the  Oregon  boundary,  75 ; 
opposes  Mexican  War  as  un 
just,  76-80 ;  speech  on  Mex 
ican  Appropriation  Bill,  80- 
82;  challenges  Benjamin  H. 
Hill,  85-8T|  stabbed  by 
Judge  Cone,  cT-88 ;  a  leader 
of  the  Whig  party,  89-92 ;  on 
Wilmot  Proviso,  92-93 ;  quar 
rels  with  Northern  Whigs 
over  slavery  question,  95 ; 
kindness  to  his  slaves,  99- 
100  ;  efforts  to  prevent  seces 
sion  in  1850-1,  106,  111 ;  sup 
ports  the  Webster  ticket, 
117-119  ;  his  defense  of  slav 
ery,  128-129 ;  on  Biblical 
grounds.  145-147  ;  speech  on 
Kansas- Nebraska  Bill,  133- 
136 ;  attacks  Know-Nothing 
party,  143-144;  on  popular 
sovereignty,  145,  154 ;  sug 
gests  reopening  slave-trade, 
148  ;  leaves  public  life,  dis 
claiming  ambition  to  become 
President,  150-151;  cared 
nothing  for  money,  151- 
152 ;  discourages  secession 
movement  of  1860  and  pre 
dicts  war,  154-156 ;  speech 


INDEX 


405 


against  secession  as  bad  pol 
icy,  158-163 ;  favors  secession 
only  as  last  resort,  160-161 ;  ar 
raigns  the  faithless  States  of 
the  North,  161;  in  letter  to 
Lincoln  urges  conservative 
course  and  asserts  right  of 
secession,  164-167 ;  speech  in 
Georgia's  secession  conven 
tion,  180-182;  on  the  State 
sovereignty  question,  188- 
189,  193,  201-202,  224;  pre 
dicts  a  bloody  war,  227,  248- 
249 ;  comments  on  convention 
of  seceded  States,  229-232; 
work  on  Confederate  consti 
tution,  233-234,  236;  Vice- 
President,  237-240;  on  Sew- 
ard's  treatment  of  Confeder 
ate  commissioners,  242-243  ; 
negotiates  alliance  with  Vir 
ginia,  247-248;  damage  to 
cause  by  his  ''corner-stone" 
speech,  251-254;  hardly  able 
to  live  on  his  salary  of  $10,- 
000,  259;  writes  of  war-time 
in  Confederacy,  262-263  ;  ad 
vises  unconditional  discharge 
of  Federal  prisoners,  265 ;  out 
of  harmony  with  Davis,  275, 
293-295 ;  on  enemy's  devasta 
tions,  288-289;  active  oppo 
sition  to  policies  of  Confeder 
ate  government,  290-296 ; 
considers  Lincoln  government 
a  despotism  and  fears  same 
for  South,  292-293,  308,  314- 
317 ;  long  absences  from  Con 
federate  capital,  294 ;  without 
hope  of  recognition  of  Europe, 
297-299;  on  financial  and 
cotton  questions,  300-303, 
308 ;  opposed  to  cotton  famine 
policy,  303-304 ;  breeds  dis 
couragement  and  dissension 
by  his  course,  307-308,  318- 
320;  against  Georgia's  en 
dorsement  of  Confederate 


bonds,  308-309;  futile  effort 
to  secure  exchange  of  prison-^ 
ers,  309-311;  final  success 
just  before  end  of  war,  338- 
339;  attacks  Davis  before 
Georgia  legislature,  312-314; 
charged  with  disloyalty,  319- 
320;  defense  of  his  "higher 
and  grander"  object,  319, 
321 ;  answer  to  Sherman's 
message,  323  ;  advises  change 
of  policy,  325  ;  speaks  in  Sen 
ate  urging  abandonment  of 
compulsory  methods,  326- 
327;  propositions  of  peace 
without  required  concessions, 
327-328 ;  consults  with  Davis 
as  to  Blair  mission,  330  ;  why 
he  was  sent  to  Hampton 
Roads  Conference,  331 ;  his 
leading  part  in  that  confer 
ence,  332-339 ;  compares 
Da  vis's  last  appeal  to  that  of 
Rienzi,  341 ;  refuses  to  make 
further  effort  in  a  hopeless 
cause,  341  ;  arrested  and  taken 
to  Fort  Warren,  343-344 ;  sad 
meeting  with  Davis,  343- 
344;  his  liberation,  345; 
elected  to  United  States  Sen 
ate,  but  not  received,  346 ; 
testimony  before  Reconstruc 
tion  committee,  346;  earnest 
efforts  to  aid  his  hapless  sec 
tion,  347,  382;  constructive 
speech  before  Georgia  legisla 
ture,  347-351 ;  urges  justice 
to  freedmen,  350 ;  the  cause 
of  the  South  under  alien  and 
negro  rule  is  "the  cause  of  us 
all,"  353;  good  influence 
over  the  negroes,  374-375; 
his  historical  work  and  com 
ment  on,  377-378 ;  bitterly 
attacked  by  Hill,  380-382; 
seeks  to  bring  estranged  sec 
tions  nearer  together,  382- 
383;  as  an  editor,  383-385; 


406 


INDEX 


returns  to  Congress,  385 ; 
there  on  sufferance,  386 ; 
speaks  against  Civil  Rights 
Bill,  387-388;  a  patriotic 
peacemaker,  390 ;  governor 
of  Georgia,  391  ;  his  religion, 
392 ;  death  and  last  rites, 
392-393. 

Stephens,  Linton,  17,  33,  72- 
73,  99,  167,  179,  183,  248, 
291,  314,  345,  385. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  his  policy 
of  indicting  a  whole  people, 
221,  352,  356-357. 

Story,  Joseph.  72-73. 

Suuiner,  Charles,  121,  123,  124, 
131. 

Syracuse  Convention  (of  Aboli 
tionists)  in  1851,  urging  dis 
union,  108-109,  121-123. 

TANEY,  CHIEF-JUSTICE  ROGER 
BROOKE,  148. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  53,  78,  91, 
106. 

Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  great  vote 
for,  369. 

Timrod,  Henry,  170. 

Toombs,  Robert,  friend  and 
political  associate  of  Stephens, 
39,  41-43,  49,  58,  72,  85,  91, 
97,  111,  117,  119;  for  seces 
sion,  124,  158,  161-163,  172- 
173,  179,  181 ;  bold  and  revo 
lutionary,  231,  273,  279,  384- 
385 ;  weeps  at  Stephens's 
bier,  393. 

Troup,  George  M.,  42,  214-215, 
224. 


Turner,  Henry  G.,  on  scorn  of 
ruling  blacks  for  prostrate 
whites,  367. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  120,  252. 

Union  of  American  States, 
strength  of  sentiment  in  favor 
of,  in  Georgia  of  1850-1,  107- 
112,  117 ;  utterances  of  Union 
newspapers,  107-110,  118. 

VAN  BUREN,  MARTIN,  94. 
Vance,  Zebulon  B.,  279,  322. 

WARNER,  JUDGE  HIRAM, 
hanged  by  Sherman's  rav- 
agers,  287. 

Washington,  George,  deplores 
slavery,  56,  253;  129,  197; 
calls  the  Union  "the  new 
Confederacy,"  202. 

Webster,  Daniel,  rebukes  North 
for  nullification,  104-106 ; 
117,  119,  124,  132,  162,  169, 
216  ;  his  threat  of  secession  in 
1812,  210-211. 

West  Point  Military  Academy, 
right  of  secession  taught  at, 
218-221. 

Wheeler,  Joseph  M.  C.,  343. 

Wilmot,  David,  author  of  Pro 
viso,  92,  103,  132. 

Wilson,  James,  59,  199,  202. 

Wise,  Henry  A.,  142. 


YANCEY,  WILLIAM  LOWNDES, 


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